AIR TRANSPORT Post-Covid cabin design
Applying strong design principles through the recovery phases will be critical
London-based design studio Tangerine’s Director Melinda Darbyshire charts aviation’s course towards recovery via three distinct, yet overlapping, phases.
“The initial phase will need to focus on communicating the changes that airlines are making to keep passengers healthy and better informed about current air quality in the cabin,” Darbyshire explains, noting that outside aviation circles, where this message has been drummed into heads for months, “most passengers don’t know that cabin air is changed every two to three minutes and that it has been HEPA filtered.”
“The second phase will address crew and passenger behaviour,” Darbyshire says, “and changes with airlines creating journeys with the least friction and designing experiences that are safe but also evoke an emotional connection with their guests. Some will be pure behavioural changes such as boarding and deplaning regimes, while others will address the intersection of technology and human behaviour.”
As one example of what may never return post-change, when a passenger steps onto the aircraft from the jetbridge, a flight attendant would approach them to inspect their boarding pass or phone, often taking it to bring it into view. Darbyshire suggests simple yet effective redesign: showing the seat number in a larger font on the mobile screen or printing it larger on a paper boarding pass.
“The third and longer phase will turn its attention to design of hard products. At a cabin level, social areas may be redefined to offer a little more distance,” Darbyshire theorises. “The aesthetics of the seating may change to embrace more fluid forms that avoid areas where dirt and germs can become trapped, as even though antimicrobial surfaces will not let pathogens spread, their surfaces won’t kill the germs either. The materials will need to trade up to become biocidal in order to kill them.”
While it may be something of a matter of received wisdom in the industry that passengers tend to have short memories of problems, it is also the case that applying previous experience to this particular pandemic needs more than just a pinch of salt. Darbyshire concludes that: “designers will be challenged to find new ways of creating the perception of comfort as they explore the passengers’ desire for increased privacy while setting that against the need for a cabin that is easier to clean.”