The sleeping pods are out, but a wellness area with space to exercise is coming to the world’s longest flight.
Qantas plan to introduce nonstop service from Sydney to both New York and London in 2022, which give a whole new meaning to the term “longhaul flight”.
Qantas expects to award a contract to either Boeing or Airbus later this summer to build the aircraft capable of this mission. For months, Qantas has teased that it was exploring configuring part of the cargo cabin to accommodate passengers. As far back as March 2018, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce stated:
One of the concepts that we have is maybe if we’re not carrying freight you do something lower where cargo is on the aircraft, do you have an area where people can walk? Do you have berths like on a train?
There’s a lot of ‘out there’ thinking that’s going on.. I don’t know if in 2022 if there’s another going to be another class but if there is Qantas is likely to be the airline that creates it.
Gyms, Not Beds
Over a year later, Qantas has scrapped plans for “cargo class” sleeping pods. Speaking at the IATA Conference in Seoul this week, Joyce described how the new aircraft would be configured:
It will be four classes. It will have a new business class, a new first class, and for the economy passengers and premium economy passengers, we’re looking at what we’re calling a fourth zone for people to stretch, to exercise, to hydrate on.
That’s an interesting change in direction from one spectrum (sleep) to the other (rapid movement). Will there be showers onboard as well?
Qantas is insisting upon an aircraft that can carry a full load of passengers and a full cargo load. Let’s not forget that Qantas is not just in the passenger business, but the cargo business as well…and that can often be even more lucrative than the souls above. While the concept of sleeping pods was not only trendsetting, but possible (see Airbus renderings below), it just did not make financial sense.
Airbus
CONCLSUION
I was really hoping Qantas would introduce sleeping pods on its new ultra-longhaul jets. Sadly, we’ll have a gym instead…with prayers that Qantas has thought through how passengers can clean themselves after a workout.
> Read More: “Cargo Class” Has Great Potential
Anyone else have a transfer bonus for Qantas on Amex? Mine shows 500 Amex = 600 QF
Bad decision. I really don’t think people will want to exercise on a flight, even if it is that long. Will there also be showers? A locker room? Berths make much more sense.
All people need on a flight is food, booze, movies, a bed, and maybe an area to lounge.
A large lounge/ bar area would be better I think. Dividing your time between a bar and seat would be better than a gym.
If I just stand on the treadmill and breathe hard will I actually be running 500mph?
Your comment about showers raises a great point. People don’t smell particularly nice after working out. Being stuck next to a smelly person for lots of hours in a metal tube sounds pretty gruesome. For business and first classes, people should be able to stretch at the onboard bar, but they have more space anyway.
I think we’re using the term “gym” way too liberally here. Yes, Joyce mentions “exercising”, but nowhere in any of the linked articles can I find him say anything about exercise equipment let alone “gyms”. Seems a bit click-baity by that newshub.co.nz article. We can probably all agree it’ll be more akin to an open lounge-like area the likes of which you’d see on EK’s and KE’s A380s, but perhaps lacking a bar and replacing it with a hydration and snack station and soft flooring for stretching. An area where someone can get in a few situps or pushups to get the blood flowing, but by no means a “gym”. C’mon folks…
Wait, you mean no flying kettlebells and bumper plates with grunting and slamming? I mean, how can this be embellished? Imagine, turbulence could be about making your kipping pull ups just that more challenging. Descending could be a reason for doing pushups with a bit of decline variation…target that core!
That’s it, I am starting Crossfit Air…I mean, what could possibly go wrong.
(and yeah, I agree, I think this is a whole bunch of BS)
Bro 1: “What box do you go to?”
Bro 2: “Yeah, I just joined QrossfitQantas. The WODs are nuts, brah! They’re all aviation-themed. Just busted out the Takeoff Tammy WOD. She’s crazy!”
Bro 1: “Yeah, brah, I bet. Pounding out all those burpees during turbulence has gotta be in-freakin-tense!”
Bro 2: “You know it, brah!”
::fist bumping ensues::
Dude, fist bump back at ya…you destroyed that WOD at 38K feet!
I do kegel exercises on long flights.
Lovely.
I am not going to use a Qantas gym. At most, to stretch my legs, I might walk there and take a look, then walk back to my seat.
If there was a Qantas in-flight hotel instead of a gym, I would buy a bed if it weren’t too expensive. It would have to be priced less than business class.
Hope they will never think of standing room only in the main deck then having coffin sized beds below. That would be a way to carry more passengers.
Hyperbole. The soundbite says “place to stretch and exercise” and the headline says “gym”. Basically, they’ll have a mostly empty space for people to mill around in and hydrate. Think a bottle of water and a yoga mat.
ULH is about chasing diminishing returns as much of the fuel burn is to carry more fuel longer. At that point, for non-meat cargo, it makes sense to stop and refuel.
My choice would be the pods: I imagined them to be something like those drawers in the morgue ( or , perhaps better from a marketing perspective, those Japanese capsule hotel pods). In any case, they’d be better than a gym.
Alan Joyce is about 5’1”; I’m not sure he ‘gets’ the importance of decent sleeping space…perhaps reflected in the fact that QF persisted with angled flat for a good decade after the competition had moved on.
Lets say they have 20 sleeping pods downstairs.
The route is 22 hours, including takeoff and landing. You can rent a sleeping pod for 5-hour time frames. there should be a bidding system, with always the highest bidder winning.
You can bid in the IFE system, from boarding, until the seatbelt sign is turned off.
Then you can start your 5 hour session, or stay for more, if you purchase more sessins.
Business and firstclass passenger don’t need it at all.
Premium economy passengers have 30% discount. Elites also have some discount.
Lets say you pay 10USD per hour. for 5 hours, thats about the price of an exit-row seat.
20 hours with 20 sleeping pods, 10USD per hour is 4.000 USD.
Thats the price of a deeply discounted oneway first class ticket, which takes a 2 square meter place. While this downstairs area would take approx 30 square meters. if not more.
There is no way, this would worth it. Not even if you ask 3-4 times more.
If you operate a gym, it has to be even more expensive to operate. An business/first customer has better private place on an airplane, they wouldn’t use it.
Economy passengers have a good reason to stay in economy. Its what they can afford. They won’t pay 30-40 dollars for a session in the gym.
Conclusion: the whole concept has only marketing value.
Not gonna happen.
Putting people on the cargo level adds a lot of complexity. Safety issues: emergency exits, anyone? oxygen masks? how do passengers get up/down between levels? that space down there is not designed nor set up for passengers. How about regulatory issues? The FAA and other agencies ain’t gonna just sign off on this
It’s good to “think outside the box” and innovate, but this would require designing the plane with this intent from the start, not as some afterthought interior modification. Either this is just a marketing tease without any seriousness behind it, or the people at Qantas floating the idea don’t know a damn thing about airplanes.
People need a place to hydrate? Whatever happened to plain old drinking water at your seat?
Most planes actually already have this by default. It’s called the area beside the galley and toilets where the heavyset and tallish people congregate to “stretch” and wile the minutes away because their seat is just too small.
Qantas is overthinking this. As others have said, pods in the cargo area would take up too much room and face regulatory issues, while an exercise/hydration area is utterly pointless. Just scrap the economy section, which stands to be torturous anyway. Instead, fill most of that section of the plane with premium economy seats – which are far more profitable for the airline and bearable for the customer – and add a lounge of some sort so passengers have somewhere to go for a few minutes to relieve monotony and sit/stand in a different position. The result would be more revenue, less weight, and customers who aren’t hating life halfway through the journey.