After more than 20 years of relative stagnation in the airline industry, new passenger jets are scheduled to take to the skies in 2005. Boeing's 747X will seat as many as 430 passengers, while Airbus's mammoth A380 will carry up to 555. Both have spacious upper decks that can be used for seatingâ€"or just about anything else.
Boeing communications director Russ Young says airlines haven't forgotten their failed "flying piano bar" experiments of the early 1970s. Instead, think fully wired workspace cubicles and comfy sleeping bunks, all protected by smart-card terminals.
Among the new features, look for developments in seating comfort. British Airways will soon introduce plasma seats, automated seats that mold themselves to your body's contours and adjust to your body temperature for maximum comfort. You can also forget about those clunky Airphones nestled in the seatback in front of you.
Says Terrance Scott, director of media relations for Connexion By Boeing, "We're building a broadband ISP at 39,000 feet." Scheduled for release in 2002, an Ethernet hookup will give passengers access to a satellite Internet link. Although Scott says the system can handle every passenger linking up, Boeing is targeting business travelers, 70 percent of whom carry computers on flights.
Though record speeds will initially remain an exclusive luxury of the elite, watch for Stealth Bomber-like blended wing-body designs to go mainstream late next decade. Richard Aboulafia, director of aviation studies for Fairfax, Virginia-based analyst firm Teal Group, estimates that airlines may be able to save 20 percent or more on their flight costs with the efficient designs, which should cut ticket prices if the planes themselves aren't too expensive to build. Design experts haven't even begun speculating as to what these designs will do to overhead access and seat stowage, but one thing is likelyâ€"plenty of aisle seats.
Passengers in a hurry who are turned off by the rickety Concorde may once again find supersonic speeds at their command by 2011. Aboulafia believes business jet makers like Bombardier and Fairchild Dournier are as little as a decade away from building a new and commercially viable supersonic transport.
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