A general overhaul of the cabin configurations feature including things like:
Option to design custom seats/cabins (maybe even visually?) with more options in terms of customisation and branding at a higher cost, or to use off-the-shelf ones with limited options at a cheaper price.
Support for technologies like ambient lighting, different IFE systems, on-board internet etc.
Licensing and operating costs for IFE/internet
Wear and tear of seats and the cabin as a whole (impact on image, costs for replacement/refurbishment)
Storage of seats (incurs storage costs but allows re-use)
Installation/replacement/refurbishment of seats and/or technical systems must happen at maintenance facilities and actually takes time to complete.
Re-use of configurations across types of equal sizes.
Fix various bugs/glitches around seat dimensions we struggle with today.
Why?
This just adds more depth and capabilities to a feature that has been around for a long time but has seen few improvements over the years. This roadmap item is merely a kitchen-sink for ideas related to cabin configurations and it will likely have to be split up once things become more concrete.
There should also be an option to configure the galleys, to enable more types of food to be served at the expense of space. This could have an impact on premium cabin meal options. Perhaps smaller galleys might limit the number of passengers that can be served food on a flight.
Similarly with toilets - a larger number would increase passenger satisfaction but take up space. Toilets could be assigned to specific sections of the cabin (ie for business class customers only). Perhaps more spacious toilets could be used in the premium cabins.
Airlines like Emirates also do some interesting things with a bar and shower facilities.
Qantas long haul fleet has self-service snack bars, and their new A350-ULR will have a wellness/exercise zone.
Air New Zealand are trialing bunk beds for economy passengers which can be booked for blocks of time.
While I generally like those ideas (just think about how stripped down a Ryanair 737 leaves the factory…) the “producer part” of my brain raises concerns. The moment we start to do this and we want it to make sense, we have a very challenging data research problem in front of us. We already use a crude and sometimes inadequate simplification of cabin space for the current-generation cabin config feature. If we add customisable galleys and lavatories to the mix, we pretty much need to start thinking in terms of actual airplane layouts, which requires this data to be available in detail for all types we support. Obviously haven’t thought about this in detail yet, but my gut tells me this might be unfeasible…or at least quite a challenge.
But maybe I am wrong and I overestimate the problem…don’t want to rule out anything at this point. This feature is officially tagged as “idea”, so anything goes
One thing I would add is the weight of a cabin configuration. Luxurious Business Class seats should weigh much more and impact the performance of the aircraft.
I’ve seen reports that some airlines have had to add lead ingots into the back of some aircraft due to the center of gravity being shifted due to to heavier business class suites. A330-300s ?
I get your point, and I’d love to do it. But to my knowledge, values for OEW without cabin equipment are near impossible to get. If I remember correctly, Airbus even stopped providing OEW values in their APMs altogether since the A350. So I’m afraid this would end up with being a lot of guesswork.
Yes the seats do weigh more but there are less of them. With the data I have usually economy heavy configs actually have a higher OEW. Trying to find exact aircraft empty weight then adding seats etc would probably be a massive pain.
Also trying to explain to a newer player why their shiny new widebody doesnt have the range listed on the sheet could be a bit of an issue or even how to calculate the effect on aircraft performance would not be straight forward.
