POST-PANDEMIC FLIGHT: ESTABLISHING THE MISSION OF THE AIRCRAFT CABIN OF THE FUTURE FROM THE PASSENGER’S POINT OF VIEW

As this paper is written, the world has been struck with a global pandemic, difficult to contain and very easy to spread. The most effective countermeasure so far is social distancing, to ensure no aerosols are exchanged. This poses a vast challenge in small, enclosed spaces, like an aircraft cabin. Unfortunately, such a countermeasure has had a great impact on the airlines and their business all over the globe. As the pandemic is not subsiding and scientists are predicting that similar situations will emerge more often in the future, it is highly necessary to take a look at the current state of the air travel and what it will have to offer to the passengers of the future. In the scope of InDiCaD (Innovative Digital Cabin Design), an internal project at German Aerospace Center (DLR), research has been done on the impact of the Covid-19 on the willingness of the passengers to fly under the given circumstances. The results of the research are threefold; firstly, a scenario where Covid-19 has left no traces, then a scenario where the consequences are enormous and the last one where the passengers are still willing to travel, albeit with an extra set of demands concerning health. These scenarios were used as a base to form mission definition for the cabin of the future as well as the fictive persona’s, depicting the passengers of the future. Through a series of workshops, there requirements have been used as foundation for building the morphological chart, consisting of partial design solutions. In this paper, the method of gathering and analysing the data will be shown as well as the resulting mission definition. The forth flowing list of requirements for designing an innovative cabin from a passenger’s point of view, able to cope with these unpreceded circumstances, will also be presented. The results of the workshop series will be shown, as well as an example of possible design outcome. To wrap up, an outlook into the future work during the project will be depicted, including the in-depth research as well as conceptual design solutions for the posed challenges