The thematic structure of passenger comfort experience and its relationship to the context features in the aircraft cabin

Abstract

This paper describes passenger comfort as an experience generated by the cabin interior features. The findings of previous studies are affirmed regarding a set of 22 context features. Passengers experience a certain level of comfort when these features impact their body and elicit subjective perceptions. New findings characterise these perceptions in the form of eight themes and outline their particular eliciting features. Comfort is depicted as a complex construct derived by passengers' perceptions beyond the psychological (i.e. peace of mind) and physical (i.e. physical well-being) aspects, and includes perceptual (e.g. proxemics) and semantic (e.g. association) aspects. The seat was shown to have a focal role in eliciting seven of those themes and impacting comfort through its diverse characteristics. In a subsequent study, a group of aircraft cabin interior designers highlighted the possibility of employing the eight themes and their eliciting features as a framework for design and evaluation of new aircraft interiors.

The high and low comfort peaks in passengers’ flight

“…This study also did not explicitly relate the different aspects to the overall comfort (like [8] and [3]). Also first impressions of the cabin environment (within the 12.8 ± 4.5 minutes of a short and 31 ± 19.5 minutes of long flights) highly determines passengers' overall comfort experience [15].…”

“…So, apart from paying attention to the cruise flight and luggage, it might be useful to see what the elements in this phase are. Passengers associate the seat and the cabin temperature both with positive and negative emotions, while IFE is only considered positive and the neighbour as negative [8].…”

“…The seat is also often mentioned in relation to comfort [8]. Next to legroom and seat there might be other improvements conceivable.…”

“…Ahmadpour, Lindgaard, Robert and Pownall showed that the seat plays an important role in the overall comfort experience [8], but a later study showed that passengers' first part of the flight determined their overall comfort [10]. An older study found that comfort perception during the flight correlates with comfort experience preceding the flight (r = 0.407) [11].…”

Distracting people from sources of discomfort in a simulated aircraft environment

“…This includes the design of the seat itself (e.g. headrests, armrests and seat upholstery), the amount of legroom provided [2,3,21,22,25,26] or the amount of space in the wider cabin environment [21]. The presence of other passengers can also affect comfort.…”