Revenue Generating Seats, Galleys & Lighting

Or how watching James Bond movies helps airlines monetise aircraft

Imagine you are watching an exciting James Bond movie on the plane. Villains shoot as the hero descends into a fiery volcano. Meanwhile an evil mastermind restrains the beautiful girl, who calls out to Bond to rescue her.

Then you are tapped on the shoulder and asked “would you like to buy a drink?” Of course not – you want to watch your movie. Meanwhile the airline has lost a chance to earn revenue. But now imagine you are offered a drink just as the credits were rolling. The timing is perfect and the movie was great - of course you will buy, and the airline earns it’s money. New technology makes this possible.

Aircraft are now data collection platforms

State of the art aircraft like the Airbus 350 have digital backbones collecting data in real time, available through the Airbus “Skywise” platform. Use cases around flight operations, predictive maintenance, safety and fuel consumption are well known.

But how aircraft cabin data can be used to provide services to passengers and earn revenue for airlines is less well understood. European aircraft manufacturer Airbus currently leads the field, but Boeing of the United States and Comac of China will likely soon catch up.

Aircraft interiors can enable service delivery

Seats, galleys and other aircraft interiors can now be fitted with pressure sensors, like those made by London-based TG0, to record how they are used. Their CEO Ming Kong showed me how the pressure patterns experienced by a seat change with passenger behaviour – sleeping is quite different to eating for example. Similar pads could be fitted to galleys to record how crew use available spaces to prepare service and the data generated will help galley designers.

Adding electronic textiles to the mix allows airlines to tailor services in real-time to match passenger behaviour on specific flights. Such data, never available before, will help structure service processes and manuals covering everything from meal delivery to landing preparation.

For example, a seat sensing a passenger waking can send a notice to the galley so the crew can proactively offer juice or water. When seats sense many passengers stirring and ready to wake, the crew in the galley can start preparing breakfast. As services will be customised to each flight and even each passenger, more people will go away feeling good about the airline, ready to book again and recommend the airline to their friends.

Intelligent seats with electronic fabrics can also proactively help passengers. Pressure data collected by TG0 and similar technology will help seat manufacturers understand the optimal setup for sleeping, eating, working and watching entertainment so passengers will be able to get as comfortable as possible at the touch of a button.

And it is not just seats and galleys where technology can enhance a passenger’s wellbeing – there is also great potential in lighting. Achim Leder, CEO of Hamburg-based Jetlite, showed me how airlines can enhance the passenger experience by tailoring lighting around a seat to an individual passenger’s requirements. For example, passengers on a morning service from London to Dubai who have just connected from the Americas can choose dark lighting that either helps them sleep or sunlight effect lighting to keep awake and help with jetlag.

Channels to monetisation

Pressure sensing galleys, electronic textiles and smart lighting are more expensive than traditional interiors and airlines will need a strong revenue case to adopt these technologies. Fortunately there are three opportunities to monetise such features:

(i) More effective service leads to happier customers who book the airline again and recommend it to their friends – the result is higher demand, which the airline can monetise through closing lower fare classes in revenue management, pricing power in some segments and selling some seats that would otherwise go unsold

(ii) Real time communications between seats and galleys allow crew to proactively offer ancillary revenue services when passengers are ready, avoiding the James Bond problem I explained earlier in this article and increasing propensity to buy

(iii) The data collected by intelligent seats, galleys and lighting can be sold back to the supply chain and even to competitor airlines.

Airlines who can get creative with their existing data will be the first to adopt, and there will be no advantage for the largest carriers because all airlines have the necessary information in their revenue accounts. Agility and a willingness to think differently will be the keys to success.

Exciting times

Over the next 20 years, airline passengers will be able to enjoy more personalised experienced driven by technologies in the aircraft cabin and airlines will be able to monetise these. What will you do? Write to me – oliver AT ransonpricing.com – and tell me!