Editor’s Note: Monthly Ticket is a NCS Travel sequence that highlights a number of the most fascinating matters within the journey world. In June, we’re trying to the skies as we highlight the thrilling world of aviation.
Hamburg, Germany
NCS
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Would you sit straight under one other airplane passenger?
It may not sound notably interesting on paper, however 23-year-old airplane seat designer Alejandro Núñez Vicente believes double-level seating is the way forward for financial system flying.
You could have seen a photograph of Núñez Vicente’s Chaise Longue Airplane Seat prototype floating across the web. Following a NCS Travel exclusive final 12 months, Núñez Vicente’s idea went viral – igniting livid debate and prompting a flurry of reactions from would-be passengers – some outraged, some bemused, some intrigued, some all the above.
“To be honest, there’s no such thing as bad publicity,” Núñez Vicente tells NCS Travel today. Proving this sentiment, he’s again on the Aircraft Interiors Expo (AIX) in Hamburg, Germany – showcasing a brand new iteration of his controversial Chaise Longue.
“People can talk and they always hate innovation in some ways,” he says. “Most of the times when they show you something new, everyone hates it at first, they’re scared of change. But the more you show it, and the more you develop it, and the more they see it, the more they get used to it.”
Núñez Vicente’s idea began small – as a university undertaking again in 2021. A nomination for the 2021 Crystal Cabin Awards – a prime prize within the aviation business – catapulted the idea into the general public consciousness. Núñez Vicente paused his grasp’s diploma and put all his time, cash and efforts into making his imaginative and prescient a actuality.
Fast ahead to immediately and Núñez Vicente has sponsors, partnership offers and is in common dialog with “the biggest players in the industry.” He believes his double-level airplane seat is the way forward for financial system flying and is working across the clock to make it a actuality.
Comfort and cabin capability
When would-be passengers wince on the potential claustrophobia and critics recommend the design is all about airways cramming extra seats on planes, Núñez Vicente insists they’ve misunderstood his intentions.
For one, he’s not making an attempt to eradicate common airplane seating altogether. Núñez Vicente envisages an airplane cabin by which the Chaise Longue is within the middle, flanked by two rows of normal airplane seating. He’s acutely aware the seat wouldn’t be appropriate or interesting for everybody, even when he thinks it could possibly be extra snug for some passengers.
At 6 ft 2 inches (1.88 meters), Núñez Vicente has spent many a cramped flight struggling for legroom and failing to sleep. He says he designed the Chaise Longue to resolve the airplane seat conundrum – not make it worse.
Still, the designer admits that for airways, the enchantment of the Chaise Longue is the elevated passenger headcount.
“Many airlines and many big players of the industry are trying to push us to put more passengers into the aircraft,“ he says. “It’s not our main priority and our main goal, but with this kind of design it’s also possible.”
At this 12 months’s Aircraft Interiors Expo, Núñez Vicente’s newest prototype will probably be examined out by a slew of airline bigwigs. He says he’s at all times excited to get suggestions from the business, however is additionally eager for different would-be vacationers to offer their two cents.
When the Chaise Longue hit the headlines in 2022, Núñez Vicente says he acquired a number of requests from individuals trying to journey to his house metropolis of Madrid, Spain, to check the prototype themselves.
“We have had people coming to try it, famous people that saw the article, and they were like, ‘I want to go and try it,’” says Núñez Vicente.
Now Núñez Vicente’s launched the Chaise Longue within the Metaverse, because of a collaboration with an organization known as 3DSeatMap VR, for example what the seat would look like in situ in a cabin. Virtual customers can wander across the design and examine it for themselves.
But Núñez Vicente is additionally nonetheless open to anybody – well-known or in any other case – reaching out to expertise the Chaise Longue prototype in individual and to supply an trustworthy take.
“We do try to adapt to every single constructive feedback that we get,” he says. “That’s how we move forward.”
At AIX 2023, NCS Travel was the primary to check out the most recent Chaise Longue prototype. My first impression is that it’s a bit of extra “real” than final 12 months’s proof of idea. There are 4 rows – two prime stage, two backside stage – and the upcycled airplane seats from 1995 (“they’re older than me,” says Núñez Vicente) really recline, making it simpler to visualise how this construction might work on an precise plane.
The new design retains the identical primary double-level idea, with a number of minor modifications. The precarious ladder-like steps that beforehand received you as much as the highest stage have been switched out for a sturdier model. Luggage on the underside stage is now designed to go beneath the seat in entrance of you. Rather than built-in screens, the thought is passengers might use private gadgets for inflight leisure.
Núñez Vicente says he’s additionally improved leg room on the highest stage, and I discover it is fairly spacious. Plus, as a result of there’s nobody straight behind you on the identical stage, you may recline the seat fairly far again, which is a particular plus.
Núñez Vicente has additionally added a beam above the highest stage seats, to point ceiling top. I’m 5 ft 10 inches (1.78 meters) and for me it feels like respectable area – though it’s nonetheless tough to know what it would really really feel like to be nearer to the cabin ceiling than the ground.
As for the underside stage, to me – somebody who is not a fan of small areas – it feels fairly claustrophobic, however this will probably be a matter of private opinion. While having a row of seats straight in your eyeline received’t be interesting to everybody, others received’t be as bothered – notably when there’s a lot more room to stretch out your ft than in your common financial system airplane seat.
Like final 12 months, I conclude that for some vacationers simply to sleep in the course of a flight, this could possibly be an efficient resolution.
And whereas three individuals sitting on each the underside and prime rows feels a bit of tight, the combating for elbow area is precisely the identical in common financial system class.
The seats on the decrease stage fold up when not in use – theater seat model – which Núñez Vicente stated makes the decrease row of the design a bit of extra accessible and will accommodate wheelchair customers, though the highest seat stays off limits for anybody with mobility points.
Núñez Vicente has spent the final 12 months touring the world, attending aviation gala’s and assembly with business specialists to speak about his imaginative and prescient.
His mother and father are sometimes by his facet supporting him – his father helped him transport the weighty Chaise Longue prototype throughout Europe by van from Spain to Germany for AIX.
“My father has his own problems and businesses but he traveled 2,200 kilometers with me,” says Núñez Vicente.
And Núñez Vicente’s associate, Clara Service Soto, works on the Chaise Longue full time too, performing because the undertaking’s Chief Operating Officer.
The couple’s mates didn’t get it at first (“You guys are crazy, this won’t happen. what are you doing, you’re wasting your time, you’re not getting a salary, you’re wasting the best years of your life,” Núñez Vicente recollects them saying).
But he says “there’s been a shift of mindset” because the undertaking has grown and garnered momentum. And for Núñez Vicente and Service Soto, sacrificing their social life is price it for the wild journey they’re having fun with in return.
“We’re getting to travel a lot and experience a lot of different cultures,” says Núñez Vicente. “It’s also enriching, it’s not only about the project, it’s also about the journey behind it.”
While Núñez Vicente says airways have an interest within the thought, there’s no assure the Chaise Longue will come to fruition. And if it does, it received’t be for a while – Núñez Vicente is presently engaged on applicable certifications – a course of that will probably be prolonged and complicated.
Núñez Vicente is additionally acutely conscious airways typically aren’t considering investing in financial system class. There are exceptions – like Air New Zealand’s new economy SkyNest – however normally enterprise and firstclass are the place the innovation occurs.
Still, Núñez Vicente thinks the double-level construction might in the end be tailored to any airplane cabin class. He’s simply launched renderings of a premium financial system model of the Chaise Longue – roughly the identical idea, simply with out the decrease center seat.
“At the end of the day, by having a double decker, you optimize the space, you take advantage of the space that otherwise is just air,” he says.
And whereas the highway is perhaps lengthy, and the design could not enchantment to all, Núñez Vicente nonetheless steadfastly believes in its viability.
“We know that this will work at some point and people will be grateful for it even though they don’t know it now, they will be grateful that someone was pushing for a new economy class seat,” he says.