All about that space

“I worked with Virgin Atlantic back in the mid-90s, when Mid Class, the invention of premium economy, happened,” Chris Brady, now the CEO of seatmaker Acro, tells Australian Aviation. “I was working in engineering at the time. Then EVA Air introduced it, then BA did, and it was pretty much BA and Virgin Atlantic and a couple of outliers doing large point-to-point markets, especially the large transatlantic markets, which have a huge point-to-point dimension.

“Eventually, Singapore Airlines went over the line two or three years ago, and then Lufthansa, and now premium economy encircles the globe, and it reaches a tipping point where the GDS can sell a ticket from anywhere to anywhere in premium economy. Then American went, United went, and now Emirates is going. I think it’s far from being dead, it’s about to become an absolute rock-solid part of the firmament. ” One of the early issues with premium economy has always been marketing the product, though.

It’s about to become an absolute rock-solid part of the firmament.

“It was always a hard sell to the travel agents, because you couldn’t sell a through ticket from Frankfurt, because you had to fly over either business class or economy. You couldn’t do a through ticket,” Brady explains.

Indeed, it took a remarkable amount of time for the global distribution systems, which power ticket sales across airlines for travel agents both online and off, to sell premium economy.

Even today, airlines and their ticketsellers largely remain unable – or unwilling – to provide passengers with more options than connecting from premium economy on long-haul flights to regular economy on short-haul connections.

Whether for notional simplicity or to avoid cannibalising business class fares, it is oddly difficult to connect from, say, New York to Adelaide in a domestic first class seat within the United States and a business class seat within Australia, even though it may well be the exact same seat as in international premium economy.

Premium economy both is and is not all about pitch

In premium economy, Virgin Australia general manager of inflight services Damon Stanton says, “what people are looking for is extra comfort and extra service, and very much value for money.

“A distinction between premium and business is that people are more often than not using their own money, and they’re a very discerning type of traveller who pay a premium for more comfort and for more service, but they want to see value for money for it as well. A big expression of that value for money is that space to really stretch their toes out and move around. ” One might expect Stanton, who recently reconfigured Virgin Australia’s Boeing 777-300ER to add three inches of pitch to hit 41in, to differ from Qantas’s head of customer product and service development, Phil Capps, whose newly released premium economy seat (Australian 2017) offers 38in, but with a newer seat design.

“For us, what we’re trying to solve for is customer space and customer movement in and out of the seat. To do that means we consider, absolutely, seat pitch. We also consider the seat profile, the dimensions from forward to aft of the seat, principally in the backrest and the seat shell, and also the way the seat articulates. Based on a consideration of all of those three things in the context of the seat structure, we believe that the existing 38in pitch works really well, and improves the customer experience from today,” Capps tells Australian Aviation.

Acro’s Brady has a different perspective.

“When Mid Class was launched, we went down to Contour seats (as was) in Farnham, when they were a small independent firm, and we bought a seat that had previously been sold to British Airways as their Club World seat. What happened was that we took seats that had been designed for 44in pitch down to 38in, because that’s the non-linear mathematics of cabins – you take a row out, you don’t add an inch for everybody, you add six inches for everybody. It was either 44in or 38in. So premium economy was born at 38in pitch, with a seat designed for another 6in of pitch. ” The problem, Brady says, was that “the seats squandered space. Although you buy a premium economy ticket and you buy a 38in pitch in World Traveller Plus, you don’t get eight inches more legroom than you do in economy, you get about four inches more legroom than you do in economy, because the other four inches is given to the girth of the seat. That’s all dead space. ” Brady, whose seats’ selling point is that they minimise the amount of metal and plastic seat structure at key crunch points for passengers, argues that “airlines know their passengers want comfort. Where does comfort come from? It comes from the spaces between the seats. Seats can’t be comfortable, only people can be comfortable – and people are comfortable when they can move around, and when they’ve got the right shape of seat.

“What’s good for short people and tall people? The avoidance of discomfort is how you balance the needs of small and large people. But having avoided discomfort, comfort in the positive sense comes from a freedom to move and a sense of a lack of constraint in space. So for me, in economy and in premium economy, we make the seats as slim as we can. That’s not taking away anything, it’s adding space.

“Our Series 7 has implausible amounts of legroom — that’s what we’ve found at the last couple of trade shows. You plonk it down, someone who knows about premium economy seats and has been looking at others says ‘what pitch is this? It must be about 42in’, and we say ‘no, it’s 38in’. ” Australian Aviation’s 190cm journalist spent half an hour sitting in one of the Series 7 premium economy seat pairs talking with Acro’s 192cm international sales manager at a trade show, and the product indeed feels substantially more spacious than many other seats. (And, naturally, the tape measure did come out to check. )

Most premium economy remains in the 38-41in pitch, 19-20in width category…

Across airlines, premium economy is more consistent than any other product that carriers offer. With very few, usually relatively recent, exceptions, premium economy seats have tended to be very similar. AirAsia X’s Premium Flatbed angled lie-flat seat, British Airways’ French subsidiary OpenSkies’ 52in Prem Plus cradle sleeper, the Air New Zealand Spaceseat – and at the other end, Lufthansa’s 36in ZIM premium economy seat – have pushed the boundaries, but mostly passengers know what they’re going to get.

Peter Zimmermann, ZIM Flugsitz CEO, tells Australian Aviation that “it’s our feeling here that the premium economy class seat will be more updated in the business class direction. We actually have another project to modify premium economy class seats and add electrical activators. Therefore, mechanical [premium economy class seats] will be substituted by electrical ones. The weight and cost stand in the way of development today. ” “The real premium economy seat is mostly a customised seat,” Zimmermann notes. “Therefore, fulfilling all of the customer requests and wishes is a big challenge. The economy class seat is mostly a standard seat with a different color and dress. However, all the other things are standard. ” Comparing the products that are ZIM’s best known premium economy seats, “Singapore Airlines has a totally customised seat compared to the Lufthansa seat. Actually, we have some projects running for other airlines which are different from both the Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines seat. However, the premium structure, the centre console structure, and the backrest structure are always the same. We have a motorised system wherein we can use always the same structural parts, while the skin is customised with different shapes,” Zimmermann says.

“More airlines are looking for more premium economy class seats,” Zimmermann continues. “And most of these airlines are willing to spend more living space, ie more pitch, which means that the standard for premium economy class seats is roughly a 38in pitch. ” Within that envelope, says José Pevida, senior vice president of engineering and product development at HAECO, “the biggest thing we are looking for is to provide the maximum possible comfort to the passenger for that kind of product. In addition, we are looking to give a lot of personal space. Personal space could mean the living space that is created by the pitch of the seat. But also personal space could be created by having easy to access amenities and pockets and areas where the passenger can easily store away things like cellphones, wallets, sunglasses, etc. But they can actually also be reached if needed at some point on the flight. That’s some of the feedback that we get. ” Of course, Pevida notes, “in our industry, all of our products are very weight sensitive and all of our products are cost sensitive as well. And so it’s a trade-off between providing a really high level of comfort and a lot of amenities, but also keeping the design simple. Simplicity usually drives lower part counts and it drives lower weight. And that drives a lower cost. So, those are the wins-wins that we are always looking for. ”

…but densification and differentiation are currently pulling the seats in opposite directions

Adding space is not only the province of new seats, though. Virgin Australia recently refitted its Boeing 777-300ER premium economy from 38in to 41in, and retained the same Recaro seat it had originally installed when it did so.

“I think that the simple answer is that it was a good seat,” general manager of inflight services Damon Stanton says. “We were working at the time on the new business class seat with B/E Aerospace in North Carolina. And we looked at what we were doing and then – without getting into too much detail – said we think now is the time to work on premium as well. We looked at the market, and we looked at the seats available, and we came back full circle and said, I think we could do a really good job with our current seat and a refurb program, and invest some money in the service. ” “It was really a conscious decision,” Stanton explains. “We felt there was more value to be gained in terms of the overall service experience from investment in the dining experience, a destination for people to visit and bringing the meal experience and the service up a notch or two, than there was to spend more money on the seat. That’s the simple facts of that. ” While many airlines – particularly those pitching their seats at more than 38in – offer a footrest, legrest or both, “it wasn’t an option on this particular seat, but it was something that we considered in various business cases and whether we thought there was value in that,” Stanton notes. “In the end we opted for giving people the extra legroom, which is why we went to 41in as delivering more comfort than a footrest. In our research and focus groups we’ve seen that some people value footrest and that other people don’t. Sometimes they don’t even notice it’s there or they find it a mite uncomfortable to use. We went more for the actual space we were giving to people and the investment in the service experience. ” With seats costing in the tens of thousands of dollars each – HAECO’s Pevida suggests roughly twice as expensive as an economy class seat – those considerations are often vital. Given the space available in modern widebody aircraft, airlines have to decide how and where to position premium economy between business and economy, physically as well as metaphorically. The key on the physical side is usually whether to try to squeeze in a small premium economy cabin before doors 2, in the first zone of the aircraft cabin, or whether it makes more sense to offer a larger business class cabin (which may even extend past those doors) and have premium economy separated by a bulkhead from economy.

But if seats are twice as expensive as economy for airlines, they don’t take up twice as much room. There is, however, pressure to make the seats more compact. Airbus has for several years been floating the concept of a nine-abreast premium economy cabin in the downstairs cabin on its A380 aircraft, where all airlines offering the product on this floor of the double-decker use an eight-abreast option: the same as a Boeing 747 or 777, which are of course markedly narrower.

On its A350, too, Airbus offers airlines the choice of installing either an eight-abreast or seven-abreast premium economy cabin, and operators seem split about which makes sense for their market. One might not have picked Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific to be the carriers choosing a less comfortable eight-abreast layout while China Airlines and Lufthansa plumped for the seven-abreast, for example.

Premium economy isn’t just being measured against premium economy anymore

The upward pressure from premium economy has long been a lament of business class seat designers and their airline customers. But as today’s airline pricing teams try to find the sweet spot for premium economy yields, passengers aren’t just finding like compared with like.

It isn’t surprising that the same recliner seats sold as a business product on a long-haul, low-cost carrier are able to undercut premium economy on a full-service airline, but passengers are increasingly able to pick up full flat beds in cheaper airlines’ business class cabins for less than or a small amount over the cost of premium economy.

As a result, for Asian flights – whether it’s competing with Chinese carriers, Vietnam Airlines, Royal Brunei, Hong Kong Airlines or AirAsia X – it’s complex for an airline like Qantas or Virgin Australia to justify the investment in premium economy on the Airbus A330-sized aircraft that serve these markets.

HAECO’s José Pevida notes that “what we have seen in certain parts in Asia and in particular in China is that the demand for premium economy is a higher scale type of product. They are likely to be those customers that would like to fully select all of the features that we have available for the product. We see them as demanding some of the feature-rich selections within premium economy. ” So, will Virgin be adding premium economy on its A330s as it launches Asian services? “I think the official response is that we’ll keep that under review,” the airline’s Damon Stanton says. “If the market is there for them it’s a case we could put together quite quickly, and we could move on that. But at the moment we’re happy with the layout of the 330, and there’s no immediate plans to introduce premium on them. ” Qantas’s Phil Capps, too, is coy. “We don’t have a premium economy offering on the A330s at this point. We’re always having a look at in which markets or across which networks would premium economy lend itself for us. At this point, premium economy performs extremely well on the US markets, to Europe and the UK, and at the moment to Africa. The routes on which we’re deploying the A330s don’t at this time lend themselves to a viable economic outcome, but that’s at now, and things are continually changing. ” Putting it into context, Capps explains that “Australia is a long way from anywhere, which means as the flight length or duration increases, our customers find a step up from economy increasingly attractive. It’s something that lends itself best to long-haul and ultra long-haul for us at this time, relative to some of the medium-haul traffic up into Asia. But, as I said, market dynamics change, customer expectations change and reconfiguration programs and linefit programs come and go, so it’s a question we’re always reviewing here at Qantas. ”

As seats evolve, so will airline positioning – and pricing

With massive orders like a 250-shipset tender from Emirates currently stimulating the market, seatmakers at April’s Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg were showing a remarkable number of new innovations in the premium economy space.

Airbus subsidiary Stelia continues to evolve its Celeste product, where a unique design moves the entire seat in a zero-gravity recline, rather like 1928’s iconic Le Corbusier LC4 chaise longue. With customers due for full announcement shortly, the market seems to be reacting to demand.

B/E Aerospace, meanwhile, is offering a new seat called Airest, a name industry veterans may remember as an economy seat in the 1980s from B/E predecessor Fairchild Burns. A fixed-shell seat with an expansive zero-gravity recline, the product feels halfway between the current Cathay Pacific regional business class and the B/E Diamond fully flat seats without direct aisle access, arranged at a slight angle, which are best recognised in Australia as the United Dreamliner business class product.

Airbus too is getting in on the act, showing a concept called Butterfly that converts from a pair of premium economy seats to a single fully flat business class bed.

But advancements in seat design are adding pressure here too. This year Zodiac and Stelia are both offering a compact staggered fully flat bed with direct aisle access, pitched below 41in, where bed length can be up to 2. 08m thanks to the stagger. At that point, premium economy would surpass existing business class products. The question is, which airline will take the plunge?