Designing a Better Business Class
The same few manufacturers build most of the industry's premium seats. But Air Canada spent considerable effort to customize its offering. It expects customers to notice.
Dear readers,
I often can predict which group wields the most power within an airline by spending a few minutes in the business class cabin. Some carriers spend considerable time and money to customize their offerings, while others go with a simple approach, emphasizing low costs and durability.1
It should not surprise you which style I prefer. While I have empathy for CFOs who want to cut costs and for COOs who lobby for indestructible finishes, I like it when sharp product-focused executives win these internal battles. The most adept executives successfully lobby colleagues to accept the whole package — a bespoke (and perhaps more expensive) design that highlights the best of an airline’s brand but is still tough enough for the most persnickety tech ops teams.
Air Canada COO Mark Nasr knows how to navigate this complex internal bureaucracy to design a suite passengers want to fly. Nasr leads the team that soon will introduce two new business class suites: the Collins Aerospace Aurora business class on the A321XLR and the Elevate Ascent on the 787-10.
Many airlines install these seats. But Nasr, a former commercial executive, persuaded his colleagues to spend time and money to make significant alterations. Air Canada invested in improvements, like extra shoulder and legroom compared to the standard version, as well as branding elements (including colors) that should make passengers feel warmly toward the airline.2
Long-time readers know Nasr is among my favorites because he’s the rare executive who is both brilliant and a consummate aviation geek.3 Nasr brags that he flies about 300,000 miles yearly, about half on competitors, and he obsesses over tiny attributes that other airlines miss. “Details matter,” Nasr said, a phrase he used several times during our recent interview.
Nasr and I recently discussed some micro-improvements Air Canada made while designing its business class suites. Here are some highlights of our discussion.