The middle seat is the best seat, you can resell your unwanted airline ticket to a stranger, there are absolutely no carry ons allowed (cell phones and laptops are ok) and your bags will still cost you money but they’ll be delivered directly to your home or hotel room. Oh, and your flight will probably never be delayed again because carry on bags take up 71% of the boarding process. That’s a real statistic too!
Poppi is the greatest airline that could, but probably will never happen, at least not entirely. Its inceptive ideas however are very serious, very real and from an extremely talented group. No, not nut jobs jaded from one (thousand) too many flights, the concept airline is born from the people who themselves design most airplane interiors, Seattle based design firm Teague. You’d think the team behind working with many of the world’s leading airlines would have a few opinions over the years and fortunately, you’d be absolutely right.
Poppy would be the Uber, Stubhub, Airbnb and Starbucks of airlines. You could pre load a flight card just like a Starbucks card for a deep discount on tickets in exchange for your prepaid loyalty, swap seats with anyone on the plane looking for a trade via the app with a chat and open seat map, get notified when your zone is boarding; and even resell your unwanted ticket on a Stubhub like online marketplace to avoid paying the dearly dreaded change fees. Still hell bent on bringing a rolling carry on? The only way to do so would be to buy one directly from the airline which would snap cleverly under your seat causing zero hassle to fellow passengers, no running out of space. Don’t forget that middle seat I mentioned. Everyone hates it. It’s a special place on the airplane below purgatory. Poppi’s answer? Sell branding rights to neat advertisers, such as Uni Qlo pictured above, allow them to dress up the seat with a special head rest, perhaps a unique discount code and a nice blanket. They get fantastic exposure, your middle seat feels less like a fictional version of hell and more like a literal decent space.
Sure, these are all fun and games concepts, yet Teague and “Poppi” took it a step further, identifying the cost vs benefit for proposed changes of this magnitude. In addition to all the checked baggage onboard a Boeing 777, passengers bring an additional 3,000 lbs of carry on luggage. In the airline industry, weight is money. Eliminating 3,000 lbs of luggage would save an airline roughly $25,000,000 per year in fuel, while keeping their steady 32 billion (WTF?!) annual industry fees collected for checked baggage in tact. It would even improve with the door to door drop off service at your hotel or residence…
Think back to what drew you into this article. Travel, across all classes, can be frustrating. No one likes change fees, everyone hates middle seats, people never know when to board and they certainly suck at bringing luggage on planes. By tackling the most commonly agreed upon passenger pet peeves, airlines could increase profit while most importantly, elevating the travel experience for all passengers. My kinda thing….
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