# Seat 1A. Up-Front and Lie-Flat Truths feat. John Walton (Editor in chief, The Up Front)

An episode of [The Indian #AvGeek](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1759764345), 27 Jul 2025, 55 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/f945ecd8/podcast/play/106016737/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2025-6-26%2F97f7a467-d667-f4a6-3551-53cde4981f40.mp3

This isn’t just a cabin tour with John Walton, Editor-in-Chief, The Up Front—it’s a conversation about culture, ambition, and the art and science of making every inch of metal feel like home. Whether you’re an AvGeek, a frequent-flyer strategist, or simply curious about how airlines craft memorable journeys, John’s insider stories and strategic insights will equip you to see every flight in a whole new light. * The spark that drew John into the world of premium cabins and #PaxEx * Two decades of luxury in the sky: flatbeds, studio suites, and beyond * The Emirates “Game Changer” enigma: 9 out of 250 aircraft, and what it says about marketing vs. reality * The surprise seat launch of the last five years—and why it turned heads * IndiGo’s premiumization playbook, from Mumbai-Manchester, as well as Amsterdam, and its A350 seat puzzle * Alliance chatter: Could 6E formally join SkyTeam (and what would that mean for frequent flyers)? * Air India’s J-class Collins Horizon Premier and the Safran Unity saga behind the scenes * First class on the 777X: dreams, delays, and design cues from AI’s leadership * Economy innovation at Emirates: height-boosted seats, tech-driven comfort, and certification hurdles * Insider takeaways from Paris Air Show and the unsung ATR deal brewing at IndiGo * Wide-body retrofit opportunities outlined in John’s new publication, The Up Front * The most underrated seat John’s flown—and the stealthy airline quietly winning at PaxEx * A glimpse at 2025’s hottest new suites and their decade-defining potential * If John could redesign one element of air travel, what would it be—and why does it matter to you John Walton - @thatjohn Vishal Mehra - @vishal1mehra

## Transcript

[0:00] Just to check, I hope it's not insensitive culturally to about
[0:03] hamburgers. If so, let me rephrase that, no.
[0:06] No, no, don't worry. OK, edit that, edit that out.
[0:09] But but I was just suddenly like, oh, hang on.
[0:11] Yeah. Hello.
[0:19] Hello my fellow geeks, Welcome to episode #46 of the Indian NAV
[0:26] Geek. My name is Vishal Mehra, buckle
[0:30] up. Today's episode is flying at
[0:33] 38,000 feet of insight with a guest who knows more about life
[0:39] flat seats than most of us know about our own sofas.
[0:44] He is the editor in chief or the voice behind the upfront, the
[0:50] sharpest take in the skies and a global authority on all things
[0:55] premium cabins, passenger experience and the subtle out of
[1:01] judging an airline by its seat map.
[1:03] Whether he's decoding the latest seat launch, calling out Cabin
[1:07] for power, or live tweeting A transatlantic trip with the
[1:12] precision of an air traffic controller, he does it with wit,
[1:17] wisdom and a window seats perspective.
[1:21] Please welcome to the Indian App Geek podcast, The one the only,
[1:26] The Seat Whisperer himself, John Walton.
[1:30] Thanks very much. Real pleasure to be with you.
[1:32] John, you've been called the go to voice on premium cabins.
[1:37] What first drew you to the world of airline interiors and
[1:41] passenger experience? Well, that is very kind of you
[1:45] to say. And I really start off as a kid,
[1:49] right? So my parents worked for the
[1:50] United Nations when I was young. And so shuttling backwards and
[1:53] forwards from New York to the UK or wherever they were.
[1:57] You know, that was, it was the 80s, right?
[2:00] In the 90s, it was a time where you could go up to the flight
[2:02] deck and sort of hang out with the pilots and those enormous
[2:05] flight decks of those original 747100 and two hundreds, right?
[2:09] There's sort of a three person flight deck and then on those
[2:12] sort of westbound day flights from from London to New York,
[2:17] you know, once those those pilots gone to the, you know,
[2:20] North Atlantic tracks, they were only too happy to have an
[2:23] interested teenager asking questions about how it all
[2:26] worked. Right.
[2:27] It's something, something to do, something to, to occupy yourself
[2:30] with. And then, you know, I started
[2:32] getting really interested in how the logistics of it all worked,
[2:36] especially in the cabins. And, you know, then in my, in my
[2:41] 20s, I started getting upgraded a few times because, you know,
[2:44] either I'd basically asked or, you know, just an opportunity
[2:50] upgrade. And then I started blogging and
[2:52] tweeting about it and, you know, was invited to, to become a
[2:56] journalist. And as I learned more and more
[2:59] about this incredible industry, including how it all fits
[3:02] together, it just, it fascinated me then.
[3:05] It continues to fascinate me now.
[3:07] How has the definition of luxury in the sky evolved over the last
[3:13] two decades from flatbeds to studio suites that we see now?
[3:19] Yeah, absolutely. So it's, it's an interesting
[3:22] question because one of the things that we look at at the
[3:26] upfront is that line between luxury and premium, because I
[3:33] think a lot of airlines failed to understand what the
[3:35] difference is there. I think there's there's a,
[3:38] there's a point at which somewhere between premium
[3:41] economy and business and quite a ways into business, people are
[3:45] expecting luxury now, even if they're not necessarily paying
[3:49] for it. So I think that a number of
[3:54] airlines do luxury really well in the premium segment.
[3:57] So for example, you look at sort of the various offerings of
[4:02] premium economy out there, right?
[4:04] So the British Airways premium economy, for example, is very
[4:07] standard, right? Like it's, it's very average.
[4:10] But you know, you look at Virgin Atlantic, who originally
[4:13] invented the one or two airlines to invent the concept back in
[4:16] the 90s. It's always had a certain bit of
[4:20] glam to it, right? Like you, you, you get presented
[4:24] with a glass of bubbles when you sit down or there's a there's a
[4:28] DJ Stief fray that comes around and all that is is a is a flight
[4:33] attendant with a bottle of cognac and a bottle of Bailey's
[4:35] on a little train. You can have a little sniff to
[4:36] the something after dinner but it just feels a bit nicer, like
[4:41] A1 level up a slightly. Elevated.
[4:44] Experience, yes, Yeah, exactly, exactly.
[4:47] And so you can, you can sort of dip, dip luxury down, but then
[4:50] when you start getting up to that difference in business
[4:52] classes, you can definitely see a number of business classes
[4:56] which are only premium. And I think I'd probably include
[5:00] Air India in that, at least old Air India, right?
[5:04] The Air India before a couple of years ago, the airline is trying
[5:08] to sort of push more into that luxury phase in the in the
[5:10] business far side of things now. But you also sort of, you know,
[5:15] Emirates is in theory very luxurious, but as you know, and
[5:18] as your listeners will know, they still fly some of their
[5:21] ancient products into India. And so you.
[5:25] End up with it all. Yeah, 232 sloppy sleepers, which
[5:29] is 1999 products, right? You know, the first flatbed in
[5:35] business class came out in 2000, right?
[5:38] This is not This is not a modern product in any way.
[5:42] The other issue I have with Emirates, and it's great that
[5:45] you have raised this point, is their first class product.
[5:49] They keep talking about the fully enclosed game changer
[5:52] speed, I think, which made its public debut at the Dubai Air
[5:57] Show in 2017. We are now in mid 2025 and a
[6:01] total of 99 Boeing triple Sevens 777300 ERS have it and they have
[6:09] a fleet of 250 odd aircraft and that's just mind boggling to me.
[6:15] It's it's almost criminal, but a tribute to their marketing team.
[6:21] Yeah, absolutely. So this is what we in, in the
[6:23] aviation history call a Halo product, right.
[6:26] And so if we go back to our question about luxury, the Halo
[6:29] product in 2005, Singapore aligned suites, right,
[6:32] Emirates's first generation of A380 suites, right.
[6:35] All that, all those generations of, of, of products, 10 years
[6:38] later, we're, we're in the Etihads A380 suites and
[6:42] residents and departments right now.
[6:47] The, the luxury that we had in 2005, those business, there's
[6:51] those first class seats are now a good business class seat, a
[6:55] strong business class, maybe that sort of studio class front
[6:58] row kind of product. I think that's, that's one of
[7:00] the things that that's really evolved is that as first class
[7:03] has has become more spacious, business classes have occupied
[7:09] the space that, that, that was first class and and this is, is
[7:15] edging further into it, right with the studio class, front row
[7:18] business plus seats that we're seeing.
[7:21] Which airline or seat launch in the last five years truly
[7:26] surprised you, John, and why? Yeah, sure.
[7:30] I'll, I'll give you 2 there at sort of opposite ends of the
[7:33] spectrums. I think 1 is Condor, which is a
[7:36] German leisure airline that was actually one of the first
[7:39] airlines to edge into studio class, right.
[7:42] So they were very much a, you know, we're a, a bucket and
[7:46] spade seaside airline and we do a little bit of long haul stuff
[7:51] out to holidays nations in like the the Caribbean or Mexico and
[7:56] so on. It's very interesting livery as
[7:59] well for condo the new. Yeah, yeah, that sort of beach
[8:02] towel stripe, I mean, you definitely spot it, right.
[8:06] And and as I said when it came out like there are, you can just
[8:10] see a little kid sort of points out the window and going, Mummy,
[8:13] is that our plane? You know that it's, it's, those
[8:17] are the memories, right. And that's what that's, that's
[8:19] so smart in terms of branding, but in terms of their business
[8:22] class product, what they did is that they took the same product,
[8:24] the same base product that Emirates has on their A3 80s,
[8:28] right, the saffron sky lounge staggered seat and they sort of
[8:32] made it halfway businessy. And then they, they kept the
[8:37] stripes put in a sort of muted palette.
[8:40] And I thought that was really clever.
[8:41] And they, they, they were one of the first ones to sort of look
[8:43] at this sort of front row business plus studio style as
[8:47] well, really, really smart. And they leapfrogged Lufthansa
[8:51] who were their sort of hometown. I mean, not even rival like
[8:54] Lufthansa is enormous and Condor is relatively small.
[8:57] And then the other one I think I talked about is the new Ana
[9:01] business class that they just launched the Paris Air Show,
[9:05] which is the room FX. And what's fascinating about
[9:09] this one? Well, there's two things,
[9:11] really. One is that they've managed to
[9:13] put an incredibly wide seat on a 787, which is actually quite a
[9:17] constrained narrow body. It's from a smaller, constrained
[9:20] wide body. It's on the smaller Twin Isle
[9:22] aircraft there. And it's, it's inspired by their
[9:27] previous generation of business art on the 777.
[9:30] So it brings in all the Kumakengo design, right?
[9:34] They, they, they had a Japanese designer to, to bring you some
[9:37] of the best of Japanese luxury into it.
[9:40] But this seats, they've gone with the type of seat that
[9:42] doesn't recline. It basically is a sofa and then
[9:45] a sort of leg rest comes up and meets you, which is great in
[9:50] terms of weight, complexity, maintenance, all that kind of
[9:53] thing. And I think I, I really enjoy
[9:57] that kind of seat. I've flown it a couple of times
[9:59] with thin air because they also have that same sort of style of
[10:01] seat. And I, I think it's great.
[10:04] Some people prefer the sort of the sort of vampire class, as it
[10:10] were, where you sort of recline back downwards, then you sort of
[10:13] when you have time to go up, you sort of come back up as if
[10:15] you're Dracula. But I'm I'm I'm perfectly fine
[10:20] with sort of slouching down into bed mode.
[10:24] I the space you get by not being constrained within a seat and
[10:29] the amount of positions that you can take up, the amount of
[10:31] shoulder room. You know, I was talking with
[10:35] journalist Seth Miller, who was at the Paris Asia with me, and
[10:39] he's 5 foot 10, which I guess is what in metric probably 1.
[10:46] Eighteen, 78178 yeah, yeah. So, so he's, he's a he's a
[10:51] reasonable height and he's, he sleeps on his front normally.
[10:54] And this is one of the first seats in business class he's
[10:56] been able to actually. So he goes arms out on in in
[10:59] front when you sleep on his front.
[11:01] And so I think that was great. I I, I really thought Ana and
[11:04] and their seat maker Saffron did a great, great job there.
[11:08] Let's talk about the Indian market.
[11:10] You recently wrote about Indigo's global ambitions and
[11:13] partnerships. What's your take on their
[11:16] premiumization strategy? Few weeks back they've started
[11:20] their Mumbai Manchester and Mumbai Amsterdam flights as
[11:23] well. Yeah, it's a really interesting
[11:25] one. I think that there's there's a
[11:27] lot of scope there for Indigo and it depends how quickly they
[11:33] want to move up from being what was until very recently in all
[11:37] economy low cost carrier, right. So they, the issue started with
[11:42] stretch, right, which is that sort of recliner style seats on
[11:45] some A321 Neos. You know those, those are very
[11:50] standard recliners, right? They're what you would see in US
[11:53] domestic first or international business class or global premium
[11:56] economy right now integrated basic has, has has two options
[12:02] in terms of its premiumisation strategy.
[12:03] So far what it's done is it's added premium economy,
[12:08] international premium economy. So this was a recliner style
[12:10] seating and that could either be where they end, they could say
[12:16] actually, you know, we're not going to get into the full fully
[12:18] flat business class side of things.
[12:20] We just want this to be A to be, you know, you can, you can buy
[12:23] up to it. And that works with the North
[12:26] Atlantic aircraft that they're leasing the 7-8 sevens right
[12:32] now. The, the, the question then is,
[12:35] OK, well, once you, once you've established that or in addition
[12:39] to that, you can create a business class offering, right?
[12:43] And that really these days means a flatbed with direct airline
[12:46] access for every passenger. And for most airlines these
[12:50] days, that means either a staggered seat, right?
[12:52] Something like what Air India has or a herring bone seat or
[12:56] something like what British Airways has or you know, that,
[12:59] that, that kind of thing. And so there are a couple of
[13:02] other options, but those are your really your main bets.
[13:05] Once you decide on that, you have decided whether or not you
[13:07] put doors on. Now doors are very heavy
[13:10] comparatively. Some people like them, some
[13:14] people don't. Most airlines seem to be taking
[13:17] them because that's what everyone else is taking.
[13:21] Some airlines are not. Some airlines are saying,
[13:22] actually, we don't think this really adds much and we're going
[13:26] to do more with the design of the seats.
[13:27] So fin air is is a good, good example of that, right.
[13:29] And I think that that that sort of it, it, it comes true because
[13:34] the, that seat is very private even without a door.
[13:38] Turning back to Indigo, if they wanted to go fully business
[13:43] class, as we've talked about, Emirates doesn't offer a
[13:47] massively great product into India.
[13:50] If you're connecting onwards from Dubai to premium market,
[13:53] sure that it's, it's, it can be pretty good.
[13:56] But in any, in any case, there's no business class doors on
[13:58] Emirates, right? This is, you know, it's, it's
[14:01] the, the, the, the glitz and glam in Emirates is basically a
[14:04] bit of shiny wood and some, some sparkly brass, right?
[14:10] Yeah, great marketing, great marketing and it's for a certain
[14:13] aesthetic, right? And that's a very, it's an
[14:15] aesthetic that's particular to a time and a place and.
[14:19] It's very loud for some people. It might be very loud for some
[14:22] people. It's great.
[14:23] So yeah, I mean, there are two. For sure, for sure.
[14:28] It certainly doesn't feel like a modern luxury, right?
[14:33] It feels like a luxury from a from a different time.
[14:35] I was just on their new A-350 at the Paris Air Show and it's a
[14:39] lot of shiny fake surfaces. And again, like there are
[14:44] definitely luxury cars that look like that.
[14:48] The most luxurious of luxury cars.
[14:49] Do not do with that as you will. In terms of of where Emirates's
[14:55] taste level is something that is inherently subjective.
[15:00] Personally, I think Emirates's premium economy is the nicest
[15:04] products that they have. It's they've, they've done a
[15:08] great job in making that look and feel luxurious without being
[15:11] over the top or bling, bling or, or, or utre in any way.
[15:17] So in Indigo terms, there's not a very high bar for Indigo to
[15:23] have to clear. If Indigo were, for example, to
[15:26] say, we're going to offer a very solid business class seat.
[15:30] So something like a Thompson Vantage seat, right?
[15:34] So there's sort of thing that Virgin Atlantic's A3 30s have or
[15:39] a Collins Aerospace elements elevation, super diamond herring
[15:43] bone like BA have. Whether or not they put doors on
[15:46] it, they would still be above quite a substantial bit of the
[15:49] market, mostly because Emirates doesn't fly direct Alexis
[15:54] business class into a lot of its Indian destinations.
[15:58] Now, I, I, I encourage your, your listeners to, to read the
[16:01] piece, but it's, that's a, that's a really interesting
[16:05] question. If they go for something more
[16:08] than a basic business class seat, not suite, that's going to
[16:12] tell you something about what their ambitions are, right?
[16:15] Their ambitions are much higher. If they don't take it, if they
[16:20] don't take a business class seat, they have options, which
[16:23] essentially include going for a Max packs, a maximum maximum
[16:29] passenger version of their A3 fifties, right?
[16:32] And you can see examples of that with, with French Bee with their
[16:36] Caribbee, right? Like where you have very dense
[16:39] seats are down the back with premium economy recliners up
[16:43] front. And so in Indigo terms, that's
[16:45] just regular economy plus stretch in the front.
[16:47] And, and that's where you are. And, and I think that in terms
[16:55] of how that premiumisation works, a lot of the, the proof
[16:59] and the pudding that needs to be there is about what happens at
[17:03] the end of the, the barbells of this, this new partnership with
[17:08] Delta, KLM and brackets Virgin Atlantic over Manchester, right?
[17:13] Because what this is, is it's KLM plus Indigo on the trunk
[17:18] between India and Europe and then KLM and Delta plus couple
[17:23] of Virgin Atlantic flights to North America.
[17:26] And on the Indian end of that is Indigo.
[17:29] Now if you're a premium traveller, so if you're looking
[17:33] for business class level of service, you're going to want
[17:37] some sort of premium experience at the airports in India both on
[17:42] departure, on arrival and on the plane.
[17:46] Indigo doesn't really have an offering on that that doesn't
[17:49] stretch. Now it could do something like a
[17:52] Euro business style product, right?
[17:54] So the business class in Europe is largely within Europe is
[17:57] largely economy class seats with the middle seat free of the
[18:01] three and you get a meal. And I, I can absolutely see a
[18:05] situation where Indigo does something like you can have
[18:09] stretch if it's there. And if you, if stretch isn't
[18:11] there, you get a Euro business style seat with all the usual
[18:15] business class luggage allowances, you know, 2 pieces
[18:19] of 32 kilos, 2 pieces of hand luggage, you know, etcetera,
[18:22] etcetera. I, I, I think that getting that
[18:26] right will be really important for, for India's premiumization.
[18:30] Right. Some very interesting points
[18:33] there. John, you mentioned about
[18:35] setting up high bar and how Emirates is in setting one,
[18:39] especially on J cabins out of India.
[18:43] Emirates might not be doing that.
[18:45] But then there are other airlines, there is Singapore
[18:49] Airlines, there is Qatar, there is Ana, there is Cathay, there
[18:52] is GEL. And even if they had off late
[18:57] for that matter, there is intense competition and it's not
[19:00] going to be easy for Indigo or even Air India for that matter,
[19:05] right? They have to fight for every
[19:07] butt on that seat, especially in premium cabins.
[19:11] But if I have to ask you, what's your hunch as far as Indigo's
[19:16] possible a 350 product is concerned, what would your
[19:21] answer be? Do you think they can do with
[19:23] the recliner seat for their long haul routes?
[19:27] I think they can if they only want to sell it as a premium
[19:29] economy product. If they're going to sell it as
[19:32] business, I don't think that's going to work.
[19:35] I think that people India is too mature a social media market for
[19:41] people to be to be to be hoodwinked by an airline
[19:44] presenting recliner seats as business class, right?
[19:48] Like people have the Internet in their pocket and they've seen
[19:52] influencers if they have the modicum of interest in flying
[19:55] business class in what actual business class is like, right?
[19:58] Or the influencers always pick it up right.
[20:01] But the people have eyes. You, you can't, you know, sell
[20:06] people business class and give them a recliner these days on
[20:08] long haul flights if they're selling business.
[20:12] My hunch is. If they go big with business
[20:15] class, that means they have big aspirations.
[20:17] They could go mid on business class or they could go not at
[20:20] all. Well, they have 60, they have 60
[20:22] A3 50s on order. So I I would classify that as
[20:26] fairly, you know, sizable ambition.
[20:29] Yeah. You know, ambition wise, yes.
[20:31] But I think the question is what what they put on those aircraft
[20:34] is going to be really interesting in, in terms of the
[20:36] onboard products. Indigo will be flying a three
[20:38] 50s to Australia, Japan, major European cities and possibly
[20:44] North America as well. Yeah.
[20:46] No, I, I, I, I think that's right.
[20:47] But I guess my, my, my question is the market that they have to
[20:52] win is relatively, I don't want to say it's relatively
[20:59] uncompetitive, but in many ways it is relatively uncompetitive
[21:01] largely because of Aryan's year's ongoing pre AI 171
[21:06] issues, right? Yeah.
[21:10] And by the I would largely mean around sort of passenger
[21:12] experience consistency, right? I mean, it's the sort of the two
[21:16] types of A-350 business class. They're going to have the 777200
[21:21] LRS, which they have the old original Air India version.
[21:23] Now they have the X Delta version, the three variants
[21:26] OF777300 yards, the the multiple.
[21:30] Hold on a second. Hold that thought for Air India,
[21:33] John. We will come back to it.
[21:35] But let's finish talking about Indigo.
[21:38] I had the C double O of Sky team few weeks back on the show and I
[21:42] was asking him what does he think of Indigo joining the
[21:45] alliance. He said something to the tune of
[21:48] you know, if they want to join in, they will.
[21:51] They're welcome. I think with all the
[21:54] announcements we have seen during the IATA AGM week with
[21:58] Indigo announcing partnerships with Delta, Virgin Atlantic, Air
[22:02] France, KLM, half of their foot is already in the alliance.
[22:07] Though it remains to be seen if Indigo actually sees the value
[22:12] of being in an alliance formally or not.
[22:15] Do you see Indigo joining the alliance?
[22:20] Yeah, I would. I think India was in a strong
[22:22] place with with the potential Sky Team alliance.
[22:27] Look, they're now in bed with Delta, KLM, Virgin.
[22:31] They signed with Garuda. This is this is very strong Sky
[22:36] team alignment. Air.
[22:38] France as well. Yeah, yeah, right.
[22:41] Like it. Well, if you're if you're in
[22:42] with, with, with KLM, you're, you're in with Air France.
[22:46] You know, let's not forget that the CEO is Peter Elbers, right,
[22:49] the former CEO of KLM. And yeah, I, I think the Sky
[22:56] team would be, I don't want to say a foregone conclusion this
[23:00] point, but it is definitely a logical conclusion to, to, to
[23:03] what they've been going on. Let's talk about Air India.
[23:07] Air India's existing J Class seat, the Collins Horizon
[23:11] Premier, originally ordered by Aeroflot.
[23:16] You've spoken to the team behind the seat.
[23:18] What's your take on it? Yeah, so I love the seat, right.
[23:22] I loved the seat when I first saw it on Aeroflot.
[23:25] It was the last aviation event that I attended before COVID
[23:29] lockdown like 28th of February 2020.
[23:35] So I think that as a seat it's great.
[23:38] It's a very strong staggered seat, good doors.
[23:44] The aesthetic, I think I, I would say is not up to
[23:48] modernity. It, it's still it, it's, it's
[23:53] those waves don't seem modern to me.
[23:56] But with everything that Air India could have done to that
[24:00] they've done, it looks like a very, a very enjoyable product.
[24:03] I know a few people who've flown it as the Air India version.
[24:06] They like it a lot. And I think that that's, that's,
[24:09] that's very strong. I've spoken to the Collins
[24:11] people about it. I'm quite surprised that more
[24:15] airlines have not taken the, the the Collins Horizon premiere as
[24:20] a as a as a seat because it because it's a great product
[24:25] generally in terms of how products go, I it's, it's one of
[24:28] the best out there. There are unfortunately lots of
[24:32] questions around Air India currently, but we will continue
[24:37] to focus on the passenger experience side for this
[24:40] discussion. There are questions around the
[24:43] state of the deal for their future business class seat, the
[24:47] Saffron Seats Unity product. You've been to the factory as
[24:51] well as I understand. What's your take on the
[24:55] situation? Yeah, I have.
[24:57] They make those in a little town in South Wales called Qumbran,
[25:01] which is, oh, a couple of hours West of London, just over the
[25:04] border into Wales. And it's Unity is a good seat.
[25:11] Saffron has run into a number of problems in terms of their
[25:17] production quality. So in terms of the reliability
[25:19] of the seats, the way that the bits fit together, you know,
[25:23] just a sort of assembly process. But yeah, so, so it was, it was
[25:29] a a, you know, positively noteworthy event where India
[25:32] said, everyone said, well, we're going to take Unity, right?
[25:35] That puts them alongside airlines like Japan Airlines,
[25:38] Qantas, Korean Air, I think chose it after after NTF memory
[25:44] serves. But I've heard mumblings and I
[25:48] and I wouldn't characterise them as anything more than mumblings
[25:51] about the that deal being in question now.
[25:57] And nobody has really given me a a good answer.
[26:02] But when I asked Saffron, they said go talk to the airline and
[26:07] that was the day before the unfortunate events in Ahmedabad,
[26:11] right? So understandably, I did not
[26:14] pursue it with Air India. I would not expect Air India's
[26:16] comms teams to be replying to me on this level of question at
[26:20] this point. I would have expected if there
[26:26] were no issues with the deal with Saffron's come back to me
[26:28] with a response like, no, no, what, what, what you're talking
[26:32] about, that deal is going ahead. We're expecting to deliver the
[26:36] first ship sets in date or something like that.
[26:41] So my, my, my, my reservations are not quashed, but nor are
[26:46] they confirmed in any way. This is going to be something
[26:50] we're going to watch obviously. But yeah, I think that's that's
[26:54] about as much as as as I or frankly anybody else can say
[26:58] about that at at this point. And Air India's upcoming first
[27:02] class, probably to be launched on the 777X.
[27:07] Nobody knows when the aircraft actually will arrive or enter
[27:11] into service with Air India. But what do you think?
[27:14] What do you think about the proposed product?
[27:18] If I were running Air India, I would not offer a first class
[27:20] product. Frankly, I would instead
[27:24] concentrate much more on some sort of business plus suite, a
[27:29] studio class product. I just don't think that the
[27:33] future fleet that they have that that would be where I would
[27:39] concentrate my energy in terms of everything from service
[27:43] design to the need to maintain them.
[27:48] Yeah, I think to to an extent in terms of operating as a a modern
[27:53] airline that is up to standard in things like the IFP working
[27:59] the seats, working the seats looking good, the the
[28:03] consistency in service, expanding things like inputs,
[28:08] the on ground experience. I worry that for Air India,
[28:12] first class is a distraction and one that they do not have the
[28:15] capacity to fully engage with. Well, Air India's management has
[28:20] affirmed a clear and ongoing commitment to offering a first
[28:25] class product in the future, particularly on select wide body
[28:31] aircraft and premium international routes.
[28:35] So you'll have Delhi, London or Delhi.
[28:37] JFKI was reading what Nippon Agarwal, Air India's chief
[28:44] commercial officer, was saying a few weeks back.
[28:47] He said first class continues to be seen as an aspirational
[28:52] product and that helps define the airlines premium image and
[28:57] ability to compete with the world's best carriers.
[29:00] So that is their official take on things.
[29:04] Yeah, I mean, what I'd say to that is you're familiar with
[29:07] Popeye, the cartoon and the character Jay Wellington Wimpy,
[29:11] who will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.
[29:16] I, I, I feel like Air India needs to serve it's burger today
[29:19] rather than the, the, than trying to pretend that it's
[29:23] going to be the, they're putting something in place for their
[29:29] future when they're going to be able to take advantage of it.
[29:33] No, if that's the case, you can easily retrofit the front of the
[29:36] cabin, take a couple of seats out.
[29:40] I There are so many warning stories of airlines who've tried
[29:48] to run before they're walking with products, and I worry that
[29:52] this is the same case. Let's move to the West of India.
[29:56] Emirates was recently in the news, as they always are talking
[30:01] about a possibly new economy seat.
[30:04] Tim Clark was talking to Richard Quest and said something to the
[30:09] tune of, you know, maybe there is some potential in making the
[30:14] height of the seats, you know, longer to give increased comfort
[30:21] to customers, especially on long haul routes.
[30:25] Clark Clark said that significant improvements are in
[30:30] development and being tested, with a public reveal likely
[30:34] within the next 18 months. Also clarified that while the
[30:39] new seat will not be ground breaking in the sense of
[30:44] dramatic transformation, a chair is a chair, as he put it.
[30:49] The improvements will be meaningful, you know, focusing
[30:52] on comfort, design, technology, as you'd expect him to say.
[30:55] What's, what's your take on it, John?
[30:58] And do you see something like that getting certified?
[31:02] It's, it's, it's hard to think to to to imagine something
[31:06] myself that somebody else is also imagining without a huge
[31:09] amount of detail and then say, oh, well, the certification
[31:12] implications of this imagination by someone else that I'm also
[31:15] imagining are this. So let me talk sort of generally
[31:18] in terms of seat height and, and, and, and see if that walks
[31:21] around to answering your question in a helpful way.
[31:25] Essentially, the barrier to higher seats in economy are
[31:30] around safety in terms of crash safety.
[31:35] So for most economy seats, that means the movement of you, the
[31:40] passenger as measured by the crash test dummy during testing
[31:44] largely forwards and what your head is going to hit.
[31:48] We had a lot of trouble in in recent years, last five years or
[31:53] so around what's called shatter, which was as the size of infant
[31:57] entertainment screens increased, as they stopped being that sort
[32:01] of matte old school touch screen surface and became glossy and
[32:08] looked like a phone or a laptop. The I'll see the interaction
[32:15] between head and screen. Basically, when the dummy head
[32:18] smacked the screen, it shattered, right?
[32:21] We've now basically fixed that with films and construction and
[32:26] placement of the, of the screen, opening up the shatter question
[32:31] again by saying, well, how about you move those, those screens
[32:34] higher? That's a big question for me.
[32:38] And it's, it's a question that I wouldn't want to try to ask.
[32:43] That said, if there's anyone who's going to try to ask it,
[32:45] it's Emirates, right? I mean, they have a, they have a
[32:48] massive, massive global fleet. However, the counterpoint to
[32:55] that is Emirates is already among market leading business
[33:00] classes, sorry, market leading economy classes, right?
[33:04] In in fact, entertainment, food, honestly in terms of space these
[33:08] days, right? And yes, a lot of what they fly
[33:13] into India is elderly, but a lot of what they fly elsewhere is
[33:17] excellent. I sat down in the A-350 seats at
[33:20] the Paris Air Show and I was genuinely really impressed.
[33:25] You know, I don't care for this sort of like watery desert
[33:30] aesthetic that they have, but that's very much a personal
[33:34] preference. In terms of the the basics of
[33:36] the seat, it's great. I don't see why Emirates, the
[33:41] incumbent in, in, in, in the incumbent here, right, would
[33:46] need to be making that move rather than someone like Etihad
[33:51] or Qatar who are the Challenger airlines or one of the new Saudi
[33:57] airlines, for example, being the ones looking at that.
[34:01] The other thing in addition to the the head impact that you
[34:04] have to look at is what's called cabin view.
[34:07] So the flight attendants need to be able to see all the
[34:09] passengers now. I think Tim Clark addressed this
[34:14] by saying, well, there's cameras everywhere.
[34:18] I would not want to be the airline that had persuade
[34:21] regulators that that was going to be fine, especially
[34:25] regulators which are already looking quite sceptically at
[34:30] emergency egress. You might have noted that a
[34:33] number of recent business class seats have caused delays because
[34:39] the doors, there's a question about doors and business class
[34:42] and just, and the, the USFAA wants to to reopen questions
[34:47] about emergency egress from doors.
[34:49] And that's fair enough, right? Because I think originally
[34:53] people didn't give enough attention to that and it's fair
[34:56] enough to talk about it. So come back to, to, to
[34:59] Emirates. I can see that, that there's
[35:04] somebody could do that. I don't know why you would want
[35:07] it to be Emirates. You were at Paris Air Show a few
[35:12] weeks back. Any interesting takeaways for
[35:14] you from the event? Admittedly much more subdued and
[35:19] muted due to the recent tragedy of.
[35:21] Course, yeah, I mean, so first of all, it was very much a muted
[35:29] event, subdued event, as you said.
[35:32] One of my takeaways was just how touched and how much concern was
[35:38] being shown by everybody in the industry.
[35:40] You know, you had the Boeing team, you know, they shut down
[35:43] their media events, but everybody's walked around with
[35:46] an Air India pin as a, as a mark of respect.
[35:51] The, the, the few press conferences that were going on
[35:54] outside Boeing, they all started with acknowledgement and, and
[35:57] condolences. You know, as as much as many of
[36:01] these companies are very strong rivals, both the air framers and
[36:04] the airlines, there's an acknowledgement that, you know,
[36:08] we are all one industry and in many ways one family.
[36:12] And then the other thing that really struck me at the Paris
[36:14] Air Show was just how full order books are, right?
[36:19] And just how little capacity there is to order new aircraft.
[36:24] So for for example, if you want anything that is not an A220 or
[36:29] an A230 Neo, you are looking to six or seven years from now,
[36:33] right, which is early to mid twenty 30s best case, right.
[36:39] If you place a large order, yeah, they you could can
[36:41] probably slide you in somewhere, right, But only for a couple of
[36:45] aircrafts. And I think in that, in that
[36:49] context, you, you start running into things like the the piece
[36:53] that actually we just wrote this morning or published this
[36:57] morning anyway. I wish I could write 2500 words
[37:01] in the morning about looking at the growing importance of
[37:04] retrofits. I'm going to come to that.
[37:07] I'm going to come to that job on on the on the next question.
[37:10] I'm going to come to that specifically on that.
[37:12] But yeah, overall what what were the trends that you saw?
[37:14] So of course, you know, great amount of demand.
[37:20] Yeah, yeah. So, so obviously there's,
[37:22] there's, there's been so much demand previously that very few
[37:27] airframers have the ability to do big deals like they have in
[37:30] the past, right? So a lot of it, what they can do
[37:33] now is execute on previous options as as Indigo did at the
[37:42] ERTA summit in, in Delhi or as Starlux did in, in Paris.
[37:51] Other than that, this was very, a very quiet show.
[37:54] And it was always going to be a quiet show, even before Air
[37:57] India 171. And it will be interesting to
[38:01] see what deals were quietly done at the show in terms of looking
[38:07] forwards in the, in the industry.
[38:11] But beyond that, it's, it's, it was a defence year really at the
[38:19] at the at the air show in, in the context of global conflicts
[38:24] of regional conflicts, which you at the Indian air people will be
[38:27] all too familiar with. You know, I think that that that
[38:31] certainly subdues a mood and and concentrates minds on things
[38:34] that are not buying commercial aircraft.
[38:38] On the deals done silently during the Paris Air Show, my
[38:41] bet is on Indigo and ATR. Not announced yet due to obvious
[38:47] reasons, but I guess we will hear about it sooner than later.
[38:52] I want to talk about your recently launched publication,
[38:55] The Upfront. Many congratulations on that,
[38:58] John. I read this fantastic detailed
[39:01] piece on it about wide body retrofits, mainly due to supply
[39:05] chain and production issues. One of the points that stood out
[39:09] for me in the piece was how late Model 777300 ERS can be upgraded
[39:15] to something approaching the width and space benefits of the
[39:18] new wider 777X cabin, and how the A330 CEOs, the classic
[39:25] engine options, might go part of the way to match the A330 Neos
[39:32] airspace cabins. And there's a real opportunity
[39:35] there for airframers seeking to expand their service portfolios,
[39:40] right? But also for the MRO operators
[39:43] and suppliers with the upgrade option programs.
[39:47] I guess somebody's misery is another man's opportunity.
[39:50] Is is there a silver lining to all of this?
[39:53] So I, I think if there is a silver lining to the to the
[39:56] audible situation, it is for, for MRO operators that's
[40:00] maintenance, repair and overhaul and people who are making cabin
[40:02] retrofits. Absolutely.
[40:05] So, I mean, yeah, it's, it's it's very much a question at
[40:08] this point of if and if so how in terms of these retrofits, so
[40:14] examples that that have been used before.
[40:17] Includes mostly narrow body aircraft, right, so it's elderly
[40:22] narrow bodies operated by for example, Delta in the US, right.
[40:26] So old 7 by 7 five sevens, old Airbus A320 family, including
[40:31] three nineteens that were, you know, previously operated by
[40:34] Northwest, you know, some of the 1st A3 nineteens in the in, in
[40:39] the US, for example. And essentially it just gutted
[40:44] the entire aircraft and replaced everything like new bigger bins,
[40:50] more modern overhead control panels, of course, new seats,
[40:55] new side wall panels, new carpet, everything like that.
[41:00] And unless you're, you know, a, a so he was extremely in the
[41:05] weeds on this like like me and you, right, Most passengers were
[41:09] very hard pressed to look at a factory fresh A321 Neo and one
[41:15] of these upgraded A320 family aircraft by Delta and say, oh,
[41:20] that one's definitely the new one, right?
[41:23] So what would I was thinking about in the piece was what, how
[41:26] does that translate into wide bodies?
[41:31] Now part of that is obviously around the extra width that
[41:33] comes from the transition from the 777300ER generation, right,
[41:39] That sort of early 2000s generation into the the, the
[41:45] 777X generation, right? So part of what Boeing has
[41:48] changed there is the internal shape and internal thickness of
[41:52] the bit between cabin side wall and the external fuselage,
[41:55] right? And that's moving insulation
[41:57] around, moving wiring around, etcetera, etcetera.
[41:59] Now you're not going to be able to do everything there with an
[42:03] old 777300 ER like move wiring. That would be, that would be
[42:08] foolishness. But can you get halfway there,
[42:11] right? Like can you add a couple of
[42:15] inches to each side, which enables a bit more space, a bit
[42:18] more comfort? Can you, for example, add
[42:22] something in the in the front cabins where some airlines took,
[42:27] you know, wide body aircraft without bins in the centre?
[42:31] Can you do something like what Boeing is now offering, which is
[42:33] having small bins in the centre, which still mean that you're not
[42:36] fighting with the person on the outboard for who owns this bin,
[42:40] right? Which is one of the business
[42:43] class traumas of our times. But can you do something like
[42:47] that, right? Can you do something around
[42:50] getting halfway to some of these new entry weights that the air
[42:53] frame was proposing? And same with with getting from
[42:57] AA30 CEO to a 30 neo kind of kind of interiors.
[43:02] So yeah, I, I if, if you're interested in this stuff, that's
[43:04] what we talk about all the time on the upfront for sure.
[43:07] Visit us at the upfront dot media and you can subscribe for
[43:11] all of our pieces, or roughly half of them are available free
[43:13] to read. According to you John, which is
[43:17] the most underrated airline seat you've flown and one airline you
[43:22] think is quietly doing amazing work on passenger?
[43:27] Experience. I think the one I would pick
[43:31] would be the first generation Singapore airline suite on the
[43:34] A380 from the early 2000s right? Had that nice big wide armchair,
[43:40] right, which sort of did a nice sort of lazy zed reclining for a
[43:45] lovely afternoon, watching things, sipping nice delicious
[43:51] beverages and and enjoying some some some great food.
[43:54] And then it had this bed that sort of swung down forwards from
[43:58] the wall, which was just so comfortable and it was very well
[44:02] padded. And then they transitioned to
[44:04] their current product, which I do not care for at all.
[44:08] It has this sort of very small, cramped sort of meeting room
[44:15] chair sort of thing, and then a very uncomfortable, unpadded,
[44:20] thin, narrow bunk that comes out of the side of the wall.
[44:24] I just think it's a downgrade, frankly.
[44:27] I mean, yeah, big higher walls feels a little bit more private.
[44:32] I don't necessarily think that the other one didn't feel
[44:34] private, to be honest. So, so, yeah, I think that's,
[44:37] that's one. I mean, you can't fly it
[44:38] anymore, unfortunately, because those, the Singapore has
[44:41] completed their refit. But yeah, I, I hope those seats
[44:45] are are, you know, happily ensconced with some collectors
[44:48] somewhere for sure. And in terms of an MI doing
[44:51] amazing work, you know, I keep coming back to thin air.
[44:56] They always want to watch in terms of passenger experience as
[45:00] a relatively small, relatively nimble airline that knows its
[45:04] niche really well. They're very agile when it comes
[45:07] to changes, right? I mean, you saw the way that
[45:09] they, that, you know, with the lack of overflying Russia, it
[45:14] became, you know, immediately they had to change their entire
[45:17] network strategy, right? Their network strategy was
[45:19] connecting Europe to Asia over Helsinki.
[45:22] And you can't do that without without Russia Overflight.
[45:26] They have a very strong product right now, right?
[45:28] That that their new business class seat, the sofa style that
[45:31] we mentioned earlier is really good.
[45:33] And they're not afraid to take risks.
[45:35] And I think that's really admirable as an airline.
[45:40] So yeah, they're they're doing amazing work.
[45:43] You've covered a wave of new seat launches in 2025, from
[45:48] Cathay's area suite to Lufthansa's Allegis.
[45:54] Which of these do you think will set the tone for the next decade
[45:59] of premium travel? I think it's United's new
[46:03] Polaris for a number of reasons. So then United new Polaris is
[46:09] the Elevate Ascent seat. Elevate is the new name for
[46:13] Adient Aerospace, which is a joint joint venture partnership
[46:19] with Boeing and Agent, the ultimate seat maker.
[46:24] It's A at it's base, it's a solid product.
[46:29] It's a good herring bone. But United has gone a step
[46:33] further than previous operators, including Qatar, including
[46:36] Hawaiian did. So it's all suites and they are
[46:40] doing a hybrid layout. And what that means is all
[46:45] window seats point towards the aisle.
[46:48] I'm sorry, all window seats point towards the window.
[46:51] The centre seats in the front point away from the aisle, so
[46:55] towards the centre line of the aircraft, right?
[46:58] So they point together, right? Once you're back in the second
[47:02] cabin, the centre line seats point away from each other with
[47:06] their toes towards the aisle, right?
[47:08] So what that means is if you're flying in a pair, right, with a
[47:12] friend or a partner, you want to be in that second cabin because
[47:16] you have essentially the sort of top half of a double bed.
[47:20] Once you get into that, into that reclining position, which
[47:24] is great. Now for, for, for various very
[47:27] technical reasons around the shape of aircraft cabins, it
[47:31] makes much more sense if you have that front cabin only to go
[47:35] on where the, where the toes are together, not the heads are
[47:37] together just in terms of how you fit them in the front of the
[47:39] aircraft. But United has really taken
[47:41] advantage of that by now offering multiple different
[47:44] types of studio class, right? They've got one type by the
[47:48] Windows 1 type in the front cabin and one type in the second
[47:53] business class cabin. And I think that can be really
[47:56] interesting when it comes to selling different types of
[48:00] business class, experimenting around, well, what, what we
[48:03] really want in this studio class.
[48:05] Studio class is the big trend right now.
[48:08] Absolutely up the front of the plane.
[48:11] And yeah. So I, I, I covered the United
[48:14] piece in quite some depth on the upfront when it, when we
[48:16] launched. So, yeah, encourage readers to
[48:18] to, to go and, and have a look there for sure if there's
[48:23] anything that you want to look at in our subscriber section for
[48:29] pros happy to give out a code for a free trial, try Podcast
[48:37] 20P as your as your discount code for, for, for signing up
[48:42] with us. But yeah, that's that I think is
[48:45] going to be one of the one of those business classes that in a
[48:48] few years back, we'll say actually that really changed the
[48:51] game in terms of look and feel, in terms of the materials they
[48:55] use, in terms of the aesthetic that really shows what you can
[49:00] do with these modern products. Finally, if you could redesign
[49:05] one element of the flying experience, what would it be?
[49:10] So it would be the flying experience for disabled
[49:14] passengers, people with reasonability and folks with
[49:18] additional needs, elderly passengers, parents travelling
[49:23] with children. By and large, too much of the
[49:27] aviation passenger experience has been built on the assumption
[49:29] that people are entirely abled and entirely mobile.
[49:34] That is simply not the case for any of us, right?
[49:38] Whether or not you have a disability, a permanent
[49:42] disability or a temporary disability, right?
[49:44] Have you broken your leg? Have you fractured your wrist,
[49:48] right? Any number of those things means
[49:50] that you need certain accommodations from your
[49:53] airline, right? Historically, you've been able
[49:57] to ask for three things, a wheelchair to the gate, a
[50:02] wheelchair onto the plane or a wheelchair to your seat, right?
[50:06] And that's largely been it. And that just doesn't encompass
[50:10] the range of people flying and what they need, right?
[50:14] I, I flew my 82 year old mother who is now, she reminds me, 83.
[50:21] No, she's now 84 this year actually to Japan at the end of
[50:25] last year. And so she flew from the UK and
[50:30] we paid a little bit more than a connecting flight to Africa
[50:33] non-stop on Ana and I can't say enough about how well Ana took
[50:38] care of her. That said, I think that one of
[50:42] the things that you, that any sort of passenger who needs a
[50:47] little bit of extra help and assistance is automatically just
[50:51] funnelled into you need a wheelchair, right?
[50:55] And then, then what happens is quite often, OK, well, you're,
[50:59] you're in a wheelchair off you go to the wheelchair corral,
[51:03] right, where you must sit in your wheelchair until we come
[51:06] and get you and we take you to the gate and then we'll roll you
[51:08] onto the plane. And but actually there's so much
[51:11] of the passenger experience that that, that that denies people
[51:15] who need who, who either need a wheelchair or even even more
[51:20] astoundingly, don't actually need a wheelchair.
[51:23] They just need some assistance getting through the, you know,
[51:25] an enormously complicated airport or on a difficult
[51:29] connection or a tight connection.
[51:32] And I think that being more offering a wider range of
[51:37] accommodations for adaptations to the passenger experience,
[51:41] whether that's ability for somebody to say I am able to
[51:45] walk, I don't know, 500 metres, but not 5 kilometres, right?
[51:51] That that would be something that could usefully be done to,
[51:54] to change the passenger experience, right.
[51:56] I'm always wondered if when my parents, they flew down to visit
[52:00] me from, I was staying in on Gran Canaria for a few weeks and
[52:03] they came down for the part of that.
[52:05] That was a simple, you know, flying from Birmingham in the UK
[52:08] down to Gran Canaria. And my mum's iPhone reported
[52:12] that she had walked five kilometres right?
[52:16] Now that's astounding to me, given that she got on 1737 and
[52:20] got off 1737 at what are really small to medium sized airports.
[52:28] OK, let's, let's, I don't think we should assume that everybody
[52:31] can do a 5K. And if we are making this
[52:35] assumptions, I think that A, that's just morally wrong and B,
[52:40] that's leaving a lot of passengers of potential
[52:43] passengers on the table, right? And for airlines, I, I, I and I
[52:48] think this, this, this may well be particularly true for, for
[52:51] your listeners. You know, I think there's a lot
[52:54] of VFR visiting friends and relative traffic to India,
[52:57] including a lot of older family members who are often shunted
[53:03] into that wheelchair category because that's the only way that
[53:05] you can get someone to help them through an airport that they
[53:07] where they may not speak the language, right?
[53:09] If you're connected through Frankfurt and you don't speak
[53:11] German, for example, you know, good luck because that airport
[53:16] is enormous. And I can understand why people
[53:19] would book the a wheelchair for that because but but they
[53:22] shouldn't have to, right? There should be an option, for
[53:24] example, to for a a non walking transfer right now when that
[53:29] involves coming in with something like the catering
[53:32] truck for people who cannot do a 567 kilometre walk through
[53:38] Frankfurt Airport or, or what I, I, I just, I do think that more
[53:43] needs to be done in terms of offering adapted experiences to
[53:48] people who need it. And on that note, I have to
[53:52] thank you for your time, John. It's been lovely chatting and
[53:56] learning from you. Thank you very much.
[53:59] You're very welcome. That's one of the reasons why my
[54:02] business partner Gareth Edwards and I started the upfront is
[54:05] that we want to take the knowledge of the industry and
[54:08] and share it more widely because it is fascinating this industry.
[54:13] So yeah, please do check us out the upfront dot media.
[54:17] You can have a discount on a Pro subscription using the code
[54:19] Podcast 20P and we look forward to seeing you there or in the
[54:24] skies. Brilliant speaking with John and
[54:28] getting a bird's eye view on all things passenger experience.
[54:32] Next Sunday it's the return of The Indian Ad Geek and we will
[54:36] have one of the most exciting young leaders in Indian
[54:40] advertising. As usual, don't forget to
[54:44] subscribe and share this episode of The Indian Ad Geek with your
[54:49] fellow ad geeks. John is at that.
[54:52] John and I am at Vishal 1 Mehra on X Always happy to have your
[54:58] feedback. With that, keep your tray tables
[55:02] up, your seatbelts fastened. I wish you well and happy flying
[55:07] my friends.

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