New tech could destroy the quiet of plane cabins. One designer wants to preserve it

Elon Musk’s Starlink is bringing superfast internet to aircraft everywhere.

If the credo of Silicon Valley is to “move fast and break things”, the next thing to break may be the relative silence of plane’s cabin.

Passengers will soon have little upper limit to the bandwidth needed to talk, play video games, to hold Teams meetings and Zoom sessions.

One design company already has a plan for this boisterous new world.

Future planes could feature small, soundproofed workstations in the cabin, a sort of on-board telephone booth.

The so-called E-Lounge allows a traveller to conduct a video call in privacy.

Possibly of more importance, the E-Lounge could spare their fellow passengers from the noise, with the talking passenger contained in a soundproof booth.

Designer Tom Eaton told this masthead that the E-Lounge has been designed specifically for the looming digital reality aboard planes.

When asked if this was the motive, the chief designer at EnCore, a Boeing subsidiary, said: “100 per cent”.

The E-Lounge, is a response to the prospect of superfast internet on board planes, Eaton said. “The cabin was historically one of the last ‘disconnected’ spaces we inhabited, and then in an instance it was furnished with some of the fastest connectivity we experienced.”

“Overnight we went through effectively a paradigm shift.

“You could think of the E-lounge as a physical response to a digital transformation.”

Qatar and Emirates are racing to wire their wide body fleets. Hawaiian Airlines already features it on flights serving Australia. United will be next.

Will these booths become commonplace?

The case for their inclusion would certainly grow. As Eaton notes, they would provide “a new and unique form of privacy”.

The E-Lounge are, at this point, only a concept, he cautions. But its one that has piqued the attention of airlines.

The concept of workstations on aircraft aligns with another trend seen in travel: a recent analysis by consulting firm Arthur D. Little identifies a blending of business and leisure travellers.

Society’s experience with COVID-19 has popularised hybrid work – putting a drain on short-haul business travel – something still seen among Australian airlines.

The authors note: “Leisure travel has proven far more resilient and dynamic – it now drives the bulk of post-pandemic recovery.”

“As professionals seek greater personal value and work-life balance, ‘bleisure’ travel has become more popular,” authors Alessandro Rosati and Mathieu Blondel wrote.

In a world where business and pleasure mix on board a plane, dedicated work stations could make sense.

In fact, in an earlier interview, Eaton suggested the E-Lounge pods could actually free business passengers who have a limited amount of work to do on their flight.

Pointing to the cost of a business class seat, he noted that it is often used only for a short period of work time, anyway.

“You’re being forced to buy an expensive kit for a short period of task,” he said.

“So when you start to offer passengers travelling for business this type of facility they can take a lower cost seat and invest money in having a workspace when they need it.”

The prospect of better-than-home Wi-Fi across all seat classes will raise issues around cabin noise levels. Under existing rules, most airlines ban passengers from using cellular phones in flight.

People using Starlink to make internet-based calls comes down to the airlines’ discretion.

British Airways is rolling out Starlink and plans to allow passengers to make calls on board as long as they keep their “voice low and use headphones.”

United, which is also rolling out Starlink for all, has instituted a “silent cabin” policy that prevents – as a condition of carriage – passengers from playing their devices out loud, something chief executive Scott Kirby describes as “commonsense” and a “common courtesy”.

How that works in a post-Starlink world will be closely watched.