3 questions to Rainer von Wrede, Airbus

Will the comfort of tomorrow's aircraft change radically?

We let Airbus engineers and designers imagine the cabins of the future, and they came up with the 'Concept Cabin': a vision of what the aircraft could look like by 2050, based on existing technologies, but also and above all on those that could be developed between now and 2050. The Concept Cabin is no longer divided by class, but by personalised zones. It will incorporate a "neural network", an intelligent interface between the passenger and the aircraft, which will be able to identify passengers and respond to their needs, and therefore personalise the layout, such as seats that fit their bodies perfectly.

Will the aircraft of the future necessarily go faster?

At the time of Concorde, the aim was to reduce the flight time between Europe and the United States to 3 hours. Today, as part of the European "Flightpath 2050" vision, one of the industry's ambitions is to reduce the flight time to 4 hours, not just the entire door-to-door journey. In addition to the aircraft's performance, this means improving the passenger's journey time to the airport, as well as the time spent in the terminal. Understanding people and their comfort has become a parameter of prime importance. Today's airlines are working hard to minimise jet lag on arrival. But if going faster means arriving at 3am in Tokyo, saving time doesn't necessarily mean improving efficiency...

In our expectations of the future, what is still complete fiction?

On a technical level, very little! But there's no doubt that the future holds surprises in store, and that the developments envisaged today will not necessarily take shape as we imagine them. That said, Airbus' objective is not only to anticipate future innovations, but also to precede them! The technologies I have mentioned are already being developed. And while they may not be used in exactly the same way as in the Concept Cabin, some of them could well be incorporated into future Airbus programmes.