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Reinventing the Airline Industry

judegomila.com

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Re: Reinventing the Airline Industry

#31

Post by uniclaude »

michael_miller wrote: post #29

The best way to reinvent the airline industry is to fly private. Think about how terrible a bus is, and how most of us use cars because it's an immensely better experience. Going from commercial -> private is a similarly massive leap (I've never flown on a chartered private flight, but I am training for my pilot's license). You go to the FBO (the equivalent of the commercial terminal, but on the other side of the air…

I would add that the lack of space is also an issue for a lot of people when it comes to owning a plane, and I'm not very optimistic about this for the future (urbanization...).

Re: Reinventing the Airline Industry

#32

Post by nimmen »

this all sounds nice and neat, but reality bites back. As per writers thoughts on Virgin. "Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. is set to report an annual loss of $201 million for the 2013 fiscal year and, in response, has imposed a salary freeze for the entire fiscal year, which began March 1."

Re: Reinventing the Airline Industry

#33

Post by eddmc »

Here is a more realistic attempt at improving the airplane experience for economy class passengers: http://www.jamesdysonaward.org/Projects/Project.aspx?ID=2634...

This is a design concept submitted to for the 2012 James Dyson Awards. Unfortunately this design takes up more floorspace than the existing cabin layout, so they would need to iterate on the design before an airline will consider it.

Re: Reinventing the Airline Industry

#34

Post by bryanlarsen »

michael_miller wrote: post #29

The best way to reinvent the airline industry is to fly private. Think about how terrible a bus is, and how most of us use cars because it's an immensely better experience. Going from commercial -> private is a similarly massive leap (I've never flown on a chartered private flight, but I am training for my pilot's license). You go to the FBO (the equivalent of the commercial terminal, but on the other side of the air…

For many people, the bus/train is the better experience. It takes less time during rush hour, and you can read/nap/work during the ride. I imagine that private plane slots at an airport have a fairly limited availability, so if they become popular you'll have congestion issues too.

Re: Reinventing the Airline Industry

#35

Post by zurn »

It would be very unwise to make flying more attractive as long as the planes are injecting fossil CO2 straight into the upper atmosphere. This makes the emissions 2-4x more potent greenhouse gases than CO2 emitted from the ground.

We should be in a hurry to implement disincentives for air travel.

Re: Reinventing the Airline Industry

#36

Post by Fundlab »

tass wrote: post #16
admford wrote: post #5

Interesting article, but there are some flaws in the author's reasoning. 1. Containerizing passenger space. Not a good idea, it would require a massive re-engineering effort in the structure of the cabin, since a whole tube is a much more reliable pressure vessel rather than half of one with a 90 degree angle where the floor meets the wall. You generate a ton of stress at those joints with pressurization cycles. Hard…

Regarding containerizing passenger space: Rather than having it as a container, what about an open space that is inserted rather than becoming part of the external structure? So, seating would be arranged on a completely open, flat structure; a long version of this: http://image.made-in-china.com/2f0j00PeRaHYmFgBgL/Retractabl... Then, this is inserted into an aeroplane, in a manner similar to what you see here: http:…

Is that an antonov?

Re: Reinventing the Airline Industry

#37

Post by CaptainZapp »

jdavid wrote: post #3

Another problem in the airline industry is pricing stability. current prices have been climbing over the last few years and pricing has always been confusing. I think there are several possible algorithm and economic models that could be leveraged to solve pricing on the fuel side, and on the consumer ticket side. Stable prices means that consumers and airlines can both plan better. For consumers, it means confidence…

What looks confusing has a lot of science and math backing it up. The procedure is known as yield management (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yield_management#Airlines) and the idea behind it is selling as many seats on a plane as expensively as possible. Since nothing is going stale quicker then unsold airline seat when the doors close they rather sell you a seat for 200$ instead of asking 2K and having an unsold seat.

In a nutshell: An airplane cabin is segmented into a number of classes. There can be a dozen, or even more classes, even though you only see economy, business and maybe first.

Each class gets allocated a number of seats and the actual booking class can have more, or less restrictions attached to it (for example: refunding, or changing the ticket, mandatory Saturday night stay, minimum duration of stay, etc).

The more flexibility you require the more expensive the ticket becomes.

Even though it looks very confusing from a passenger perspective and prices can fluctuate on an hourly basis, depending on the number of seats available for a specific sub class, the concept makes a lot of sense from an airline's perspective.

Re: Reinventing the Airline Industry

#38

Post by netnichols »

"Remov[e] silly things like entertainment controls on your arm rest. These frequently activate the screen when your trying to sleep. Bring it all to the touch screen interface."

Nooooo! Good grief has he really never had someone repeatedly jabbing the touch screen on the back of his seat? Granted that could be partially mitigated with better touch screens, but some people still jab at iPads.

Re: Reinventing the Airline Industry

#39

Post by netnichols »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #34
michael_miller wrote: post #29

The best way to reinvent the airline industry is to fly private. Think about how terrible a bus is, and how most of us use cars because it's an immensely better experience. Going from commercial -> private is a similarly massive leap (I've never flown on a chartered private flight, but I am training for my pilot's license). You go to the FBO (the equivalent of the commercial terminal, but on the other side of the air…

For many people, the bus/train is the better experience. It takes less time during rush hour, and you can read/nap/work during the ride. I imagine that private plane slots at an airport have a fairly limited availability, so if they become popular you'll have congestion issues too.

Indeed. In many parts of the world the normal intercity bus ride is a quite pleasurable experience, significantly better in many ways than flying a budget (or pretty much any) airline.

Re: Reinventing the Airline Industry

#40

Post by Fundlab »

eddmc wrote: post #33

Here is a more realistic attempt at improving the airplane experience for economy class passengers: http://www.jamesdysonaward.org/Projects/Project.aspx?ID=2634... This is a design concept submitted to for the 2012 James Dyson Awards. Unfortunately this design takes up more floorspace than the existing cabin layout, so they would need to iterate on the design before an airline will consider it.

That is awfully clumsy! The current layout of 'screens behind the seats' lauds the aesthetic minimalism in a more profound way.

You did give me a good laugh by the way!

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