Abstract

The wellbeing and comfort of passengers have always been a concern for the aerospace industry; passenger comfort has therefore been subjected to a lot of research in the past few decades. While previous studies aimed at setting priorities for the aircraft interior elements that are significant to passenger’s comfort, this paper introduces passenger’s perception of those contextual elements in relation to comfort experience. Eight themes of passenger’s perceptions during the flight are identified as the result of a qualitative data analysis. They are named peace of mind, physical wellbeing, proxemics, pleasure, satisfaction, aesthetics, social, and association. The implication of some themes such as proxemics, i.e., recognition of one’s personal space by others, and association, i.e., the symbolic significance of the design to the passengers, for comfort are particularly original. Furthermore, psychological peace and tranquility is found to be as big an influence on passenger’s comfort as physical wellbeing. The eight themes are proposed to be used as a road map for generating design solutions in the aircraft interior with the aim of delivering pleasurable and positive experiences.

Keywords

Passenger, Comfort; Experience; Aircraft; Cabin Design

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COinS
 
Jun 16th, 12:00 AM

Defining the experiential aspects of passengers' comfort in the aircraft interior an empirical study

The wellbeing and comfort of passengers have always been a concern for the aerospace industry; passenger comfort has therefore been subjected to a lot of research in the past few decades. While previous studies aimed at setting priorities for the aircraft interior elements that are significant to passenger’s comfort, this paper introduces passenger’s perception of those contextual elements in relation to comfort experience. Eight themes of passenger’s perceptions during the flight are identified as the result of a qualitative data analysis. They are named peace of mind, physical wellbeing, proxemics, pleasure, satisfaction, aesthetics, social, and association. The implication of some themes such as proxemics, i.e., recognition of one’s personal space by others, and association, i.e., the symbolic significance of the design to the passengers, for comfort are particularly original. Furthermore, psychological peace and tranquility is found to be as big an influence on passenger’s comfort as physical wellbeing. The eight themes are proposed to be used as a road map for generating design solutions in the aircraft interior with the aim of delivering pleasurable and positive experiences.

 

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