Sincerely’
The Future Of Aviation
Climb Aboard The Plane Of The Future
Ah, the jet set. Crammed into a coach-class seat next to a pair of sweaty neighbors. Nothing to look at but the back of an air sickness bag. Your knees are crushed when the jerk in front of you pushes his seat back. Good stuff.
Take heart. At Boeing's (nyse: BA -news - people ) Payload Concepts Center north of Seattle, engineers are studying techniques used by Starbucks(nasdaq: SBUX - news - people ), Disney(nyse: DIS - news - people ), Cirque du Soleil and Wal-Mart (nyse: WMT - news- people ) for clues to make flying less of a chore. "We are having a blast,” said Pete Guard, the center's director. Good for them. Now what about us?
Well, for starters, what if airlines adopted Wal-Mart's inventory tracking systems for handling passenger luggage? U.S. airlines lose, on average, about 250,000 bags a year, Guard says. That's less than 1% of all the bags they handle--but with each costing up to $90 to recover and deliver, it's still a substantial cost.
If airlines put one of Wal-Mart's radio frequency identification (RFID) tags on each bag, they'd be able to better track them--cutting losses. Further, the technology could allow airlines to create a database on board the plane where passengers could confirm that their bags are flying with them to Oakland, not Auckland. That would reduce passenger anxiety--and maybe make them less insistent on toting massive carry-on bags that slow down the boarding process.
Boeing is also studying whether the food you eat on a flight can make you feel better. The research includes nutritional studies, as