The Airbus 320neo family are arguably the greatest mid-size planes ever built. The Airbus site tells me that the “new engine options” (neo) airlines can choose from include a “Pratt & Whitney PurePower PW1100G-JM geared turbofan” or “CFM International’s LEAP-1A”. Sharklets on the wingtips keep fuel consumption down.
Since this blog is about airline revenue economics and not engineering, airworthiness or fuel-burn I will stop there when it comes to the technical details. The point is that these aircraft fly a long way, so passengers on-board will be expecting a true longhaul experience formerly only available on wide-bodies.
Since the aircraft has only one aisle there are a number of issues that do not appear on larger planes but which airline designers need to overcome. Airlines like SAS will be experiencing this right now to a high degree – their latest long-range single-aisle (launched just recently) even has three cabins, increasing the operational complexities and making it hard to deliver the required service standards.
Get it right and passengers will want to fly on these planes again, increasing demand and boosting fares to make the aircraft even more profitable. Get it wrong and willingness to pay will be low, offsetting the aircraft’s cost efficiencies to make a net loss.
This article presents some ideas.
Overhead storage is limited
Generally speaking it takes longer for people to board planes when they struggle to fit their bags into the overhead stowage compartments (OHSC). So the fewer passengers there are per OHSC, the less time is needed to make sure everybody is seated and the quicker the aircraft can turn around, the more missions she can achieve and the more ticket revenue she can earn.
Unfortunately, every single-aisled aircraft suffers in this respect. To see why consider the following table, which shows that wide-bodies have between 2.0 and 2.5 passengers per OHSC. Meanwhile on a single-aisle there are 3.0 passengers per OHSC.
Airbus and Boeing love to give airlines presentations showing plenty of OHSC space when identical bags are stacked neatly. Sadly passengers do not have the same bags, and even if they do when they get on board the plane they may not stow them neatly. On longer flights people will want to bring entertainment and toiletries on-board, so demand for OHSC space is likely to be higher than airlines are used to.
“Ryanair solution”: Make it appealing for people to check their bag, through a small allowance and/or fees to carry on – time is money, so some people will be happy to pay to avoid waiting at the carousel.
“Qatar solution”: Arrange for gate agents to spot passengers who have bought two or more bags of duty free and require them to gate-check their cabin bag – I was surprised when I saw how readily people acquiesced.
To make matters worse, crew bags, safety equipment and entertainment systems are often clustered around specific seats, especially at the front and rear, so everybody gets confused and bags go further away from passengers than they should, leading to a more stressful flight.
“Oliver solution”: Cause crew to stow their bags through the plane and not at either the front or the rear, avoiding clusters too – keep any antimacassars, magazines and other bits and bobs that accumulate in the OHSC away from the front and rear as well.
Galleys and lavatories are scarce
There really is not much room for either galleys or lavatories on long-range single-aisles. If the airline installs plenty of room for these spaces, seats must be taken out.
Investing in the galley loading plan will pay dividends. At Qatar Airways our Service Design Team recommended washing some cutlery items before the second service as there was always plenty of hot water and that meant space for cutlery could be used for more trays, drinks or duty free. It is also possible to use special chinaware and holloware for the single-aisle’s premium service, but this requires a procurement exercise and a special addition to the Cabin Service Manual.
When it comes to lavatories, the biggest issue is which facilities premium economy passengers should use. They are behind business class, so if they come forward that creates traffic and distractions during a complex service or when people are trying to sleep. If premium economy passengers need to go to the back that places more pressure on the economy lavs and risks running into an economy service trolley, either during the meal or when crew are delivering onboard retail orders processed through the entertainment system.
Less concentrated economy or business class services will make it easier for premium economy passengers to use the loo.
Flat beds are required, but are inefficient on short rotations
These days a business class seat that is not a flat bed is unacceptable on a five-hour plus service, especially a red-eye. Fortunately both established seat vendors and startups have solutions. Stelia’s OPERA for example:
(I do not own this image - if you do I hope you are cool with me using it to tell this story, if not please let me know and I will take it down)
And the Butterfly seat can be converted into either a flat bed or a four-abreast premium economy seat. This smart solution is ideal for airlines who need to rotate aircraft between long and short flights. When I analysed this seat for Airbus and others my models estimated profit potential of thousands of Dollars per seat-set per week against either a standard flat bed or four-abreast configuration.
(I do not own this image - if you do I hope you are cool with me using it to tell this story, if not please let me know and I will take it down)
On long flights, European-style 2-2 with a blocked centre seat does not cut the mustard, even in premium economy. SAS uses seats that are more like mid-2000s business class as their premium economy product.
Premium economy is in demand, but hard to serve
Some analysts claim that premium economy has overtaken business class beds to be the most profitable of all the longhaul cabins. I am not convinced – I think it depends on the airline and route. Whichever wins the profitability game the economics of this cabin are great as airlines can typically charge double the economy fare for 50% more space.
Premium economy is neither exclusive to wide-bodies nor longhaul. IAG’s openskies flew from Paris to New York with three cabins on an old B757 before 2010, including BA’s “New” Club World hand-me-downs rebranded as “Biz Bed”.
(I do not own these images - if you do I hope you are cool with me using it to tell this story, if not please let me know and I will take it down)
When airlines operate longhaul missions with single-aisles, if they do not have premium economy they are missing out.
Today Vistara, China Southern, SAS and others offer three-cabin service on single-aisles. The problem is that service design for three cabins on one aisle is tricky. Here are the questions they need to answer:
1. Are both business class and premium economy served from the front?
2. Is the second service delivered from the front or rear galley?
3. Do business class and premium economy each have their own crew and trolleys?
There are no easy answers. Airlines will trial processes on the ground, but finding the right solution for an individual carrier will require experience and depend on their unique mix of passengers and markets.
oliver AT ransonpricing DOT com