Whether you’re heading off on holiday or coming back from Grandma’s, flying is great fun.

And part of that comes down to the cabin experience.

Plane cabins are designed to keep passengers and crew safe and comfy, even while flying 35,000 feet above the ground where the air is thin and freezing.

When developing cabins, aircraft designers focus on four key things:

Comfort
Ambience – that’s the way the experience feels
Services – from toilets and entertainment system to the galley and trolleys for the tasty snacks
Contemporary design elements such as straight lines, clean shapes and clear surfaces to make it look just right.

Like the air! When you’re flying at 35,000 feet, if you want a bit of fresh air, you can’t just open a window. You need a top-notch ventilation system that refreshes the air every 2 to 3 minutes, passing it through filters before mixing it with fresh air from outside. That’s even faster than in places which have to be super clean – like hospitals! Now… what if you can enhance the air further – perhaps vitalizing it with vitamins. That might help people feel more refreshed when they land after a long flight.

What about the lighting? You don’t want bright lights when you’re watching a film or trying to sleep!
That’s right. So designers are adding in ambient LED lighting to give colourful glows above your head. And it’s not just for style! Special lighting can help beat jet lag by mimicking sunrise and sunset to help you get some sleep and arrive refreshed.

Plane designers are also dreaming up some wild ideas like cabin walls that can become transparent so you can see the clouds above and the mountains below, and maybe even get information about each summit.

And how about seats that clean themselves and adjust to your body? Or special interaction zones – where you could try on the latest fashions in virtual changing cabins or play a virtual game of golf high up over the clouds?

They’re even talking about planes that use your body heat to help power onboard systems. Imagine that, you are the battery!

And if one of your parents were flying, through state of the art communication systems, they could read you a bed time story… from 35,000 feet!

Now, we know boarding can be a bit stressful, with only long queue to go through one door, and then squeeze down the aisle to get to your seat. Well, the terminal of the future might not have gates as we know them… planes could pull up alongside the terminal like a train, and passengers board quickly through multiple doors. Just tap your ticket on a touchscreen and go.

And your luggage? No more wrestling it into overhead bins! It could be whisked away on a conveyor and stored in the cabin. And get this, AI is playing a big part. Smart assistants already help passengers book flights, track bags and find airport shops.

AI can also help tailor your flight, suggesting movies you like, snacks you’ll love, even where you prefer to sit. It remembers you better than your best mate!

And for something a bit more futuristic, how about replacing all the rows of seats with personalised pods? Or flying planes in formation to save fuel? Or even landing planes on huge airborne aircraft carriers, and swapping planes at 30,000 feet!