Race for a better business class
In a confidential test laboratory in an office park near the Frankfurt airport, a small Lufthansa team holed up for five years, refining one of the German airline’s most closely guarded secrets. They called it the V concept.
Almost two meters long and close to 60 centimeters wide, the V concept is the German carrier’s latest weapon in the fierce competition among global airlines. It is a new business-class seat, and if you are traveling round trip from Frankfurt to New York, it can be yours for about $5,000.
“Business class is where competition really Watch new business-class seats being put together: Search business class is serious,” said Björn Bosler, who led Lufthansa’s team of dozens of seat designers and engineers.
Billions are being spent on research and development, architects, industrial designers and even yacht designers to pack seats with engineering innovations and fancy features. Just fabricating a single businessclass seat can cost up to $80,000; custommade first-class models run $250,000 to $500,000.
Travelers in business and first class may represent 10 percent to 15 percent of longhaul seats globally, but they account for up to half of the revenue of airlines like Lufthansa or British Airways, said Samuel Engel of ICF SH&E, an aviation consulting firm.
“The seat is one of the few elements that an airline can actually make its own,” said Patricia Bastard, an architect and designer who has worked with Air France.
Lufthansa, the world’s fourth largest airline in terms of passengers, is investing $4 billion in onboard amenities. But its new businessclass seat accounts for roughly a third of that $4 billion investment, said Mr. Bosler.
“Business class today is what first class
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