Trip Report: China Airlines A350-900 Business Class, March 2024

The review highlights an impressive experience with China Airlines, showcasing its distinct design, spacious cabins, and excellent service. Recognized as Design Airline of Asia 2023, it offers a robust route network and innovative features like a sky lounge. The overall journey, from check-in to food, confirms the airline’s high standards.

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Trip Report: JetBlue A321LR Mint ‘Studio’, April 2023

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you might not know that New York’s ‘hometown airline’ JetBlue has been operating across the Atlantic for almost two years, offering a value proposition to the full-service concept on the highly competitive route between JFK and London. Although it’s taken us a few months to sort a trip,…

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Trip Report: SriLankan A330 Business Class, April 2022

Last month, we were lucky to try out SriLankan’s Business Class again, approximately 4 years since the last time, which was the first time since the pandemic, and it gave us an opportunity to see how the carrier was faring post-COVID. SriLankan has always been one of our secret favourite carriers. It often sits below…

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Lufthansa trials economy ‘Sleeper’s Row’ concept on Sao Paulo routes

Lufthansa is utilising this time to trial new economy concept products. While it recently announced that in economy passengers on short-haul flights will now have to pay for dining and drink options, on the long-haul network the carrier is currently testing a new Economy Class seating concept called “Sleeper’s Row”. This product follows the likes…

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Could VR be a powerful tool both for design and communication post Covid-19? PriestmanGoode think so

Virtual reality has been around for a while, its use however within the aviation sector is increasing. Many design studios now have adopted this way of modelling cabin interiors and seat designs to expedite the creative process and visualise the end product with a high quality interactive render. There is clear benefit on both sides…

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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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Trip Report: Turkish Airlines B787-9 Business Class September 2019

Flight: TK67 Aircraft Type: 787-9 Class: Business Class Route: DPS-IST Date: September 2019 http://www.turkishairlines.com It’s not a secret that Turkish Airlines has one of the best soft products in the sky. From our previous reports, we’ve always been impressed with the food & drink, amenities and IFE system onboard their aircraft, but the B777 and A330 hard products in business…

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Singapore Airlines gets creative with new amenities for children (and children at heart)

Entertaining children on long-haul flights – as any parent would know – is an art form, balancing sugar intake, sleep and restlessness is an all consuming part of the flight. Thankfully Singapore Airlines have taken a creative and beautifully simple approach to entertaining kids on their flights with the adoption of a new Origami amenity…

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Delta knocks our socks off, with Bellini welcome drinks, enhanced menus and hot towels. And that’s in economy!

There are a few times in the past few years I’ve been proud of the advancements in service levels across all cabins, and this is one of them. Delta seems to be bucking the trend of shredding any passenger comforts away and de-bundling the inflight experience. In one bold statement made today, the airline has…

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Etihad Completes First Single-Use Plastic-Free Flight To Highlight Industry Challenges

Etihad Airways is now the first airline in the region to have operated a flight without any single-use plastics on board, in a bid to raise awareness of the effects of plastic pollution. Flight EY484 departed Abu Dhabi on 21 April, landing in Brisbane on 22 April, also known as Earth Day. H.H. Sheikh Theyab…

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United Rolls Out New Amenity Kits

United Airlines‘ customers now have an opportunity to experience the ever-popular Sunday Riley products thanks to the upcoming roll-out of new amenity kits featuring what is frequently described as a ‘cult’ beauty brand. This new collection, In some stylish leather cases (in premium classes) will begin its roll-out later this month on board and the range…

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Trip Report: China Airlines A350-900 Business Class March 2017

Flight: CI063 Aircraft Type: A350-900 Class: Business Class Route: TPE-VIE Date: March 2017 http://www.china-airlines.com China Airlines last year won two awards from us for their formidable turn-around of their inflight and ground product, especially in business class. Their A350-900 is the latest aircraft to join the fleet and features their brand new Business Class product, based on Ray Chen’s design found…

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JetSet Era? We Believe It’s Alive And Well

There’s a lot of talk about the nostalgia of the “Golden Age of Travel”, glorified by shows like Pan Am where we see passengers sipping on whiskeys and Martinis as they jetted across the Atlantic, reclined in large recliner seats, dressed impeccably. The warm fuzzy memory of the JetSet era – with the likes of…

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Emirates Refreshes Amenities In First & Business

Not to be outdone by their counterparts, Emirates launched new amenity kits and loungewear for their premium passengers at the end of December. The expansive collection of amenities include First Class lounge wear, luxury blankets, skincare from VOYA and a new range of amenity kits from their long-standing partnership with Bulgari. As well as new plush,…

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Air Canada Showcase New 787 Interior

Air Canada, who have created one of the densest seating 777‘s going, which apart from their new business class cabin (which is great), packed passengers in their economy cabin, has now released impressions of their 787. Whilst the economy cabin offers 3 x 3 x 3 seating (which although tight is similar to almost all…

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Flying with JetBlue Mint Doesn’t Need To Cost A Mint

JetBlue have announced the new price point for flying with the only private ‘suite’ between West-East Coast flights; Los Angeles and New York and San Francisco and New York. Starting at a mind bending $499 one way they have managed to surpass our expectations yet again with the costs being yet another reason to fly…

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Interview With Simon Lloyd, Virgin’s Newest Secret Weapon

thedesignair.net interview with Simon Lloyd Marketing Director, Virgin Atlantic I was lucky enough to grab some time between meetings with a very busy Simon Lloyd, Marketing Director for Virgin Atlantic on the VS045 headed to New York. After sipping on some champagne and savouring a brilliant burger in the ever award winning Clubhouse in Terminal…

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REPORT: Is Print Dying?

Whilst this pretty nifty (if not shouty!) video might appear somewhat self-serving considering its creator is Ink, the world’s largest inflight magazine producer, they do highlight an interesting topic in aviation right now. Is the in-flight magazine dying? Apparently not if this months Aeroflot magazine is to be taken seriously weighing in at a whopping…

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