Work / Japan Airlines (JAL)

Infusing cabin interiors with the essence of Japan

For decades the national airline of Japan, Japanese Airlines (JAL) focused on domestic passengers and knew their consumers well. But as the Japanese Government launched an initiative to attract more than 40 million international travellers to the region, JAL faced an unprecedented shift in the demographic of its potential customers and wanted to respond to the opportunity.

Undeterred, by a gap in their knowledge, JAL set the ambition to create a new signature experience for their large order of A350s and sought a design partner to help them to create a cabin interior that could bridge the culture of Japan and the desires of a new international audience.

Services

Trend Forecasting & Vision Setting
Product Design
Design Engineering
Colour, material & finish
User Experience & UI

Learning

Having established long-term relationships with many of Japan’s leading brands, we were already familiar with the country and its customs, but to support this knowledge and be inspired, we delved deeper into the country’s culture and JAL’s brand.

We gathered insight into rituals, symbolism, aesthetics and tastes, learning about the “traditional innovative spirit of Japan” that fuelled JAL’s brand. Combining this insight with our extensive knowledge of passenger motivations and trends, we built the foundations of a strategy to guide design and the seed of a vision.

Leaping

We crafted a design strategy called “Infused Essence” to give order to the many insights and rich sources of inspiration we’d gained. Our aim was to infuse the essence of Japanese innovation, craftsmanship, service and atmosphere with the values of JAL’s brand. This would guide the coherent design activity across all classes of the aircraft and help JAL’s operational and engineering orientated business to focus on the customer experience.

Landing

All three cabin classes are imbued with the Infused Essence design strategy to create a sophisticated atmosphere, with a purity of aesthetics and finely crafted details. They set the stage for the cabin crew to welcome passengers with ‘omotenashi’, Japanese thoughtfulness.

Innovation is present across the cabins; from redefined seat geometry for increased comfort, to unique pleated curtain structures created through reimagining how to use existing manufacturing techniques. All these innovations made possible through close collaboration across the supply chain, from airframer to seat vendors to materials suppliers.

Combining our creative leaps with hard won technical knowledge and deep collaboration, together JAL and tangerine turned vision into reality and delivered the aircraft on time.