eVTOL Passenger Seats: “Luxury or Basic Functionality?”

Lead­ing on from eVTOL Insights arti­cle last week about the reveal­ing of Eve Air Mobility’s rather func­tionary-look­ing elec­tric air taxi pas­sen­ger seats, this coin­cid­ed with an AIX sur­vey at its recent event in Ham­burg, Ger­many, which showed pas­sen­gers actu­al­ly want, no demand, a lux­u­ry expe­ri­ence. In fact, 80 per­cent of respon­dents are call­ing for a more com­fort­able and afflu­ent-look­ing inte­ri­or stat­ing that busi­ness jet inte­ri­ors, for exam­ple, are out­dat­ed.

Try­ing out five dif­fer­ent eVTOL seats at last year’s Farn­bor­ough Air­show, the No.1 expe­ri­ence came from Lil­i­um. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the Ger­man com­pa­ny is now defunct. Only Archer Avi­a­tion offers an attempt to make its air­craft inte­ri­or look ele­gant.

“Eve Unveils eVTOL New Seat­ing at AIX Event”

Agreed, cost and weight comes into the equa­tion, but when eVTOLs begin fly­ing in the Mid­dle East, for exam­ple, com­pa­nies may have to man­u­fac­ture dif­fer­ent and more com­fort­able seat­ing for that region, as wealthy cus­tomers may not accept mun­dane-look­ing seat ware as found in a typ­i­cal Eng­lish bus or train.

The sur­vey states, “High-net-worth indi­vid­u­als are eager to embrace the joys of fly­ing in eVTOL air­craft, but only if they have suf­fi­cient­ly well-appoint­ed cab­ins.” For exam­ple, The AIX report asked 250 senior busi­ness exec­u­tives from the UAE with annu­al incomes of more than USD329,000. This will be one of the ear­ly Mid­dle East adopters of elec­tric air taxis.

Archer Avi­a­tion (top seat) is more in-line with what poten­tial Mid­dle East eVTOL fly­ers desire

It found that 96.4 per­cent of the group are open to the new mode of trans­porta­tion. This is bro­ken down to 52.4 per­cent empha­sis­ing a desire for con­ve­nience and acces­si­bil­i­ty;  49.6 per­cent attract­ed to a nov­el and excit­ing trav­el expe­ri­ence; and 47.6 per­cent sup­port­ing the reduced envi­ron­men­tal impact of the craft. 

Yet, most reveal­ing, the AIX report includ­ed respon­dent calls for cab­ins with “cul­tur­al­ly-sen­si­tive inte­ri­ors.” Almost 98 per­cent said they will expect bespoke fea­tures, with a high degree of choice over cab­in colours, light­ing and unique enter­tain­ment options for flights that aren’t expect­ed to take more than 20 min­utes or so.

Almost half of the sur­vey respon­dents said eVTOL air­craft oper­a­tors must pro­vide flex­i­ble fam­i­ly seat­ing con­fig­u­ra­tions too. Yet, few of the up-and-com­ing mod­els have more than four pas­sen­ger seats.

Archana Dharni, the AIX show’s event direc­tor, com­ment­ed “This year we’re plac­ing a spe­cial empha­sis on ensur­ing eVTOL cab­ins not only meet, but exceed the evolv­ing expec­ta­tions of this dis­cern­ing clien­tele.”

Per­haps, Joby and oth­ers should return to the draw­ing board and re-look at their present eVTOL inte­ri­ors for the Mid­dle East mar­ket?

(Top image: The ulti­mate lux­u­ry seat­ing found in the new Four Sea­sons Pri­vate Jet)

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