Qantas Pod Class

[Drguano]

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/mile-high-workouts-and-sleeping-pods-could-come-to-new-qantas-jet-cargo-class-2018-03-28

[gweilgi]

Won't ever come to anything.

Airlines are forever placing articles in the press how their new planes will have this or that luxury feature -- showers, treadmills, bars, smoking cabins (Air France, lo those many years ago), you name it.  In the end, the bean counters always end up victorious: squeezing a few more rows of seats into the plane for even more paying passengers will always beat sleeping pods for passengers who have already paid for a seat.

 

[Corylax18]

I think its a great Idea for long haul flights. I also think it has a very good chance of coming to something, but definitely not on every route or at every ariline. There are literally hundreds of long haul routes with little to no sustainable cargo traffic. Tucking more people into that empty cargo space will mean simple addition, no subtraction (or a small subtraction) of paying customers upstairs. 

Airbus and their main seat design/manufacturing partner have already started working on the concept for their A 330 fleet, the smallest of Airbus' wide bodies. Could you imagine a triple deck A380? You could easily fit 600-800 people depending on the density configuration. I think it makes a ton of sense for Airlines like Qantas, Hawaiian, New Zealand and the like. They have wide open cargo holds on every return trip to their mainland hubs, why not split that empty space 50/50 and sell seats for both legs of the trip? 

 

[Duxnutz]

Our flights are usually chock a block with much more lucrative cargo. There’s scope to do this, Airbus has an existing crew rest facility down in the belly and I believe other planes did/do too. Heating the space to comfortable levels increases fuel burn though (several %) which is kinda counter productive.