Air India’s Dreamliner Makeover Signals a Confident New Design Era

Air India’s newly unveiled Boeing 787 interiors by JPA Design illustrate the airline’s commitment to a cohesive and modernized passenger experience. Building on the A350’s transformation, the redesigned cabins reflect a refined Indian hospitality through thoughtful color palettes, tactile materials, and integrated design. This new standard symbolizes Air India’s broader multi-year upgrade, enhancing brand consistency across its long-haul fleet.

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Discover follows in Edelweiss’s footsteps with interiors that punch above its weight

Discover Airlines has launched its new long-haul cabin featuring the Vantage XL Business Class seats, aligning the airline with contemporary standards. The design offers improved comfort and privacy while maintaining a modern aesthetic. This strategic upgrade reflects a broader trend within the Lufthansa Group, emphasizing pragmatism over complexity in cabin development.

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The Secret Sauce to Making A321 Premium Cabins Work

The success of narrowbody long-haul flights like Etihad’s Airbus A321LR hinges on service design, not just seating. Effective service choreography enhances the passenger experience, ensuring timely, attentive care. Unlike Iberia, which faced delays, Etihad exemplifies how thoughtful crew movement and operations can create an exceptional, intimate atmosphere in a confined space.

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Malaysia Airlines adds lie-flat seats to upcoming 737-10 MAX aircraft

Malaysia Airlines has unveiled new interiors for its upcoming 737-10 MAX fleet, featuring 12 lie-flat Business Class seats, replacing traditional recliners. With 12 aircraft on order, the airline aims to compete with regional rivals and enhance traveler experience. Their goal is to rank among the world’s top airlines by 2030.

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LATAM continues to evolve its fleet with ‘suite’ upgrades to some of its 787’s

In order to continue improving its fleet and the onboard experience for passengers, LATAM announced that starting in September, it will begin a refurbishment process for 24 of its Boeing 787 aircraft, with a total investment of US$360m, completely upgrading the cabin interiors with new seats, onboard entertainment, and design enhancements. However instead of kitting…

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Screen Wars: scratching the surface of a much larger challenge that’s looming in the airline industry

The Aircraft Interiors Expo showcases innovations in airline seating and technology, reflecting a post-COVID resurgence in passenger experience. Despite excitement, airlines face challenges in setting distinct identities and navigating a plethora of choices. Collaboration among suppliers and embracing an open IP approach could enhance future developments in airline interiors, promoting faster innovation and integration.

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SWISS is latest airline to launch new cabins similar to Lufthansa’s product – but the Swiss touch changes the cabin entirely.

It may not be first to the punch, but following on Lufthansa’s coattails, Swiss has revealed its own personalised ‘SWISS Senses’ air travel experience from 2025 onwards utilising exactly the same hardware as sister carrier Lufthansa. The centrepiece of the new customer product is a redesigned cabin for the airline’s long-haul aircraft fleet, which was…

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Kuwait Airways reveals upgrades to brand image, including new uniforms

Kuwait Airways has recently announced a wave of enhancements across its passenger fleet on the A330-900neos as well as new uniforms, new routes and improvements to its lounge offering in Kuwait. While many of the improvements will only been see by a few travelling on the airline in the near future, one element will be…

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Iberia seeks to up the ante with new A350 interiors

Iberia is the first airline to take delivery of the new A350 cabins that feature ever-so-slightly wider cabins and new technologies that make the aircraft lighter and more advanced (such as greater flap settings and faster retracting landing gear), even though they look identical on the outside. However, on the inside, Iberia has opted to…

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Has the era of revolution ended? Long live evolution

Let’s face it, airline cabins are becoming more and more familiar, the day of being surprised when walking onboard is almost over. The era of innovation that saw all-aisle access, private suites, and fully flat beds in business class – which first blossomed some twenty years ago – has seemingly settled into a plateau that…

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KLM (finally) introduces Premium Economy product, creating consistency across the alliance

Friday saw the announcement that KLM will finally introduce its own Premium Economy product, bringing the carrier in line with Air France, Delta and Virgin Atlantic, its strategic partners. Dubbed Premium Comfort Class, the product sits above its economy comfort product which is fundamentally an economy seat with a little more legroom, and below the…

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China Airlines receives first A321neo with impressive interiors

Taiwanese carrier China Airlines has just received its first A321neo passenger aircraft which heralds a new era in the airline’s narrow-body fleet. A total of 25 of these advanced Airbus aircraft will enter the fleet over the coming years, which will operate short-haul routes including Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, and Cross-strait. The aircraft itself features…

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Jiatai bring new Economy and Business Class seats to the industry in partnership with Factorydesign

AVIC Cabin Services is more than just AIM altitude and Thompson Aero Seating, however those will be more familiar names than Jiatai. However, it’s one company and part of the group not to be overlooked. Jiatai’s new JT220B Business Class and JT220E Economy Class seats are a result of the company’s strategy, supported by ACS,…

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United Airlines declares ‘Passenger Experience war’ against rivals with impressive new interiors

United Airlines, now profitable once again has firmly set its stall as a leading Passenger Experience airline, vying for market dominance through modern, comfortable cabins that give passengers what they want: more space, more entertainment and more choice. This is something we applaud and have been promoting as the right approach to winning over customer…

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Qatar Airways reveals new 787-9 Business Class Suite, and as expected, it’s the new Ascent seat

Tomorrow, Qatar Airways will see the first flight by its new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner passenger aircraft, featuring its much anticipated new Adient Aerospace ‘Ascent’ Business Class Suite. The aircraft will operate on a number of key routes to Europe and Asia, starting with its Doha to Milan service followed by Doha to Athens, Barcelona, Dammam,…

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Corsair receives new A330neo with brand new hard products

French leisure carrier Corsair, based in Paris Orly has just received the very first of 5 new A330neo aircraft which will modernise its fleet. Last year saw the retirement of its 747s which have now been replaced by an all Airbus A330 fleet. The airline has streamlined its network offering which once spanned the US…

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JetBlue’s Trans-Atlantic ‘Mint’ might be turning heads, but the economy cabin isn’t half bad either

While we covered JetBlue’s fantastic new Mint product recently, the airline certainly kept our eyes at the front of the aircraft, as we thought that’s where the magic was going to happen. However, it seems when it comes to Economy Class travel, the airline has decided to firmly position itself as a challenger to the…

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Airbus’ impending A320 Airspace cabin gives airlines more opportunities to build branded experiences

Airbus is soon to bring its first A320 family Airspace cabin to the market thanks to JetBlue’s new A321 which will be flying in just a few months’ time. Airbus has just recently started flight testing of the first Airspace Single-Aisle aircraft. A second phase of in-flight testing will take place in February to validate…

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JetBlue shows it means business with its new Transatlantic Mint product

JetBlue has been long touting its desire to compete on the Transatlantic market. With the recent exit of Norwegian’s long haul operations, there’s certainly a slot to be filled in competitively priced disrupters, and JetBlue has jumped at the opportunity. However, it certainly means business, trying to take a slice of the highly lucrative Transatlantic…

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Could tactile, textured finishes be an emerging trend post-COVID?

It’s long been established in scientific fields that memories, emotions, and senses are all tied together. The same region of the brain that processes the five senses is also partly responsible for storing emotional memories. In the airline field, that means passengers are more likely to remember and build brand memories that tie in all five senses…

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JetBlue’s new A220 features a sleek new cabin, mirroring the carrier’s latest fleet

JetBlue has just revealed the all-new onboard experience which will soon greet customers aboard the airline’s Airbus A220-300. It is the first of no less than 70 A220’s that JetBlue has on order, that was delivered to the airline’s home at John F. Kennedy International Airport Terminal 5 in New York on New Year’s Eve.…

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Could Vantage Solo become one of the most common seats in Business Class for the next decade?

The industry has been mooting the possibility of growth in the long-haul single-aisle market across the past couple of years, however 2020’s pandemic has rapidly escalated this conversation. These narrow body ultra-long-haul aircraft are perfectly suited for a subdued travel market across the next few years, with fewer seats and the ability to connect point-to-point…

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Stelia’s new Opera narrow body seat might not look a game changer, but it’s a clever evolution

Stelia’s new ‘Opera’ seat has just entered the market, specifically for narrow-body single-aisle cabins. This new “Full Flat, Full Access, Full Privacy” Business Class seat claims it offers the highest standard wide-body comfort on single-aisle. Now you might be like, ‘hang on, I’ve seen reverse herringbone seats on single-aisle aircraft before, such as American Airlines…

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Gulf Air shows off new A321LR cabins with flatbeds in Business Class

Over the past few years Gulf Air has managed to really shake off its tired products of the past and reposition itself as a boutique carrier that gives the ME3 a run for their money. The 787 product is certainly stunning, and we thought that in many ways, thanks to their smaller more intimate cabins,…

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As designers look to UV sanitisation, could existing light fittings prove the most logical solution?

You might have seen in the news, that airlines are increasingly turning to UV (and in particular UVC) to sanitise their fleets. Only in the past few weeks JetBlue adopted a new trolley-based light sanitisation station that’s wheeled through the cabin to disinfect the cabin in approximately 10 minutes. Why UV light? While UVA and…

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PriestmanGoode shows off their vision for a future ‘Pure Skies’ cabin

Meet Pure Skies, PriestmanGoode’s answer to the future of flight, responding to the recent curve ball Covid-19 threw at cabin designers of today. The London-based design studio created a new design concept to support the future success of the aviation industry – understanding that a clean slate is needed to bring confidence back to the…

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Don’t put your feet up. Why airlines still have to invest in design, especially now

Unless you’ve had your head under a rock, you might have noticed that airlines are struggling to survive right now. Their entire model is based on free movement between destinations, a right that has since been rescinded by the global governments who are trying to get a grip on the pandemic. As such, airlines are…

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MEA receives new A321neo with new interiors and livery

MEA doesn’t often feature on TheDesignAir, as it has slipped under the radar for a while with its older fleet and less-than-design approach to aviation. However it seems the airline has turned a corner and is featuring firmly on our radar now. While not as ‘bells and whistles’ as many other Middle Eastern carriers, it…

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Emirates latest to invest in a measured design approach to hygiene

Emirates has taken a very pragmatic approach to hygiene in – perhaps – the most advanced myriad of sanitisation products to ensure a safer journey without impacting the passenger experience in a way so far removed from what we were once used to. The airline’s model shows potential blueprints for a mid-term approach to travelling…

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