Airbus unveils radical vision of future aircraft design

The company’s visionaries see a future in which an aircraft’s bionic structure mimics bird bone, which is optimised to provide strength where needed. The idea would allow an ‘intelligent cabin wall membrane’ to be deployed that can become transparent to provide passengers with open panoramic views.

As radical as that sounds, it’s not the only futuristic suggestion that the company has come up with. It also claims that the cabin of such aircraft might also be able to identify and respond to passenger needs, enabling bespoke features, such as morphing seats that change to meet an individual’s body shape.

First, business and economy classes would be dispensed with, in favour of new personalised ‘zones’ that would offer tailored levels of experience.

In a central ‘interactive zone’ of such a cabin, for example, virtual pop-up projections would transform passengers to whatever social scene they wished to be in, from holographic gaming to virtual changing rooms for shoppers.