Oh, and the Airplanes Are Badly Designed, Too
Travel Blog • Eva Holland • 06.05.08 | 9:51 AM ET
Talk about piling on. As if the passengers, political bloggers, environmental psychologists and even pilots jumping on the “air travel is miserable” bandwagon weren’t enough, now the design critics are joining in, too. New York Times By Design blogger Allison Arieff has added her take on the design of the planes themselves.
“Airline companies are storming the doors of design consultancies, looking for ways to over-deliver to first class customers with boutique hotel-ish airport lounges, flatbed seats and memorable flight experiences vis-à-vis lighting, meals and entertainment,” she wrote in a recent post. “A designer colleague recently e-mailed me about her new gig designing a first-class luxury lounge for a Pacific Rim airline. Great, I e-mailed back, but I wish one of these airlines would spend five minutes on the economy experience.”
Later, she suggests that the current economy class model “seems to look to gas station restrooms for precedents.”
Ouch. Of course, as far as I know, no road-tripper has ever been forced to sit in the gas station restroom for three hours.
Photo by Ma1974, via Flickr (Creative Commons)
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Sophie 06.05.08 | 6:54 PM ET
I can’t remember the name of the long-gone first-class airline based here in Dallas a number of years ago…but it had a simple design element that I thought so incredibly brilliant, I can’t believe nobody thought of it before or since: grab bars on the ceiling—under the overhead bins—running the full length of the aisle.
Passengers walking up and down aisles could hold those instead of grabbing every seat as they passed—one of the small irritations of travel that contributes to our general air rage.
Traveler22 06.09.08 | 9:57 AM ET
Airlines should get some ideas and inspiration from the restrooms on Via Rail, the Canada train system.