APEX Editor's Blog

Imagine you’re throwing a dinner party for a few friends and business associates.  Now imagine that the guest list expands to several hundred people, and the party will now be held in a two-bedroom apartment with an oven that can only reheat food. If you take that scenario and place it 30,000ft in the air [...]

Executives at Hawaiian Airlines believe the carrier has discovered the right formula to execute an onboard experience that garners high praise from customers while preserving the carrier’s balance sheet. The airline during late 2012 carried out a significant revamp of its onboard service in the economy cabin on its transpacific flights to North America, which [...]

Executives at WestJet believe the carrier’s decision to reduce seat pitch on its fleet of 17 Boeing 737-800s to accomodate a new premium economy offering on the aircraft will not irritate passengers who opt not to pay extra for the extended legroom product. Calgary-based WestJet this month plans to begin cabin reconfigurations to create four [...]

Bombardier is offering CSeries customers the option of selecting ultra-slim ‘super economy’ seats – with seat pitches set as low as 28in – from the twinjet’s catalogue, in addition to less high-density economy-class seating arrangements. “We’ve been able to allow pitch down to 28in by contouring the seats,” Bombardier VP CSeries Rob Dewar tells the [...]

Canadian low-cost carrier WestJet has hinted it is close to unveiling the path it plans to pursue in the future for in-flight connectivity, and reveals it is studying seat density on its Boeing 737 fleet. WestJet in 2005 debuted JetBlue subsidiary LiveTV’s system, which was designed to offer free live television and a premium service [...]

Installing fixed-back seats in long-haul aircraft has proven to be a risky proposition for some airlines in the past. Who can forget the backlash encountered by AirAsia X’s failed experiment with “non-reclining” economy class seats, and the carrier’s subsequent need to replace them with more traditional seats? Yet, as sky-high fuel prices continue to bite, [...]

Last fall Star Alliance members Lufthansa, its subsidiary Austrian Airlines, and Air China launched the grouping’s long-haul joint procurement seat programme by selecting a common seat architecture for economy class based on B/E Aerospace’s popular Pinnacle design. In advance of this week’s Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg, the APEX editor’s blog interviewed Lufthansa general manager product [...]

Geven has received the green light to provide high-density, economy-class seating for Airbus widebodies, including the A380, the APEX editor’s blog can reveal. The Italian manufacturer already provides economy-class seats for the A320 family of aircraft. “There is a trend going on: the [growth of the] long-haul, low-cost carrier for areas of the world where [...]

In the November issue of the Airline Passenger Experience magazine, Brett Snyder discussed a weighty issue – the topic of how airlines accommodate passengers of size. Back in 1978, according to the title of one of that year’s bestselling books, fat was “a feminist issue”. In 2011, it’s an airline issue. Snyder says, “As impolite as it may [...]

Star Alliance member United-Continental is pressing ahead with a plan to add first class and ‘economy plus’ sections to 30 Bombardier Q400 turboprops, as the US major seeks to offer a seamless in-flight product to passengers across platforms. Bombardier CRJ700s and Embraer 170s operated under the United Express banner feature first class, economy plus and [...]