LEGENDS OF THE SKY
A plane comes laden with Finnish design. It has been 40 years since Finnair’s maiden flight to New York and you can’t help but wonder: what on earth has happened to the airline industry’s design ambitions? ‘Forum’ toasts with ‘Ultima Thule’ and remembers when it all started. Text Hanna Nova Beatrice, photography Pelle Bergström,
It says Paavo Nurmi on the fuselage. “The flying Finn”, is in the starting block and he is ready for take off. In first class, passengers are toasting with Tapio Wirkkala’s glass, Ultima Thule, and on the ground happy Finns are waving blue and white pennants.
It is 15 May 1969 and Finnair describes its first flight to New York as a “flying Finnish design exhibition”. It is of lesser importance that the flight takes 13 hours and requires two landings: after all a piece of design history is being created. A good deal has happened since then. The frosted Ultima Thule – inspired by the barren winters in Finland – has become one of Iittala’s best-selling glass series.
The elegant dresses of the flight attendants have, like the ambitious interior of the company’s first DC-8s, been banished to nostalgic books for flight enthusiasts. And the design ambitions of the entire aircraft industry have started to waver.
This is clearly noted as Finnair proudly shows off its latest purchase – five new Airbus A330s that are to help the company in its growing venture in Asia. The new planes, with interior design by the Swiss agency Ludeke design, can hardly be compared with the pimped plane Paavo Nurmi*. There is an absence of any great design collaborations. The largest difference is actually only the fact that Finnair’s corn-blue colour has become a few shades lighter. What has happened? Is the era of interior design for planes over? Or is something else than design more important?
“We are facing totally different challenges today. The airline industry is the only one where demand is constantly increasing. But with today’s low prices, it is still hard to make a profit,” says Markku Remes, manager of Finnair’s Customer Experience Department.
Previously it was natural to collaborate with a well-known designer. But now designers are asked to make bids, and the best office offering the lowest price gets the job. But let us go back a little in time.
Bonjour tristesse
When the first tourist flight took place between Berlin and the seaside resort Umrum in Germany in 1920, planes flew low. Passengers sat in freestanding wicker furniture produced by Thonet and those who wanted to could open the windows and lean out for a better view. A few years later, the first zeppelin sailed leisurely over the Atlantic at 130 km per hour, with Bauhaus-inspired furniture of steel-tubing in the smoking room. But it wasn’t until the end of the fifties that flying became more accessible for the general population. This was the arrival of larger and faster jet planes and a new era began: the glamorous age of air travel. Airlines surpassed each other with design collaborations and new products. One of the greatest challenges for designers at that time was the aircraft seat, which should be both light and comfortable, could be inclined backwards and store the tray so it wasn’t necessary to have it on one’s lap. Some proposals remained a prototype – such as Finn Juhl’s rather unrealistic swivel chair for SAS’s first DC-8, as it was neither comfortable nor particularly practical. But many of the products that were produced during this time have today achieved an almost iconic status. Alitalia collaborated with designer Joe Colombo, BOAC called in Robin Day and Sigvard Bernadotte designed silver services and steel cutlery for SAS. The American airline Braniff International took it to the extreme and under the management of Alexander Girard declared war on “the plain plane”. Here nothing was left to chance: even the chequered boarding card matched the uniform of the personnel at the gate. “You can fly every day of the week and never fly the same colour”, the advertisement stated, referring to the plane’s many colour schemes.
But how are things today?
Answer: much more boring.
Because if you ignore a few collaborations – such as Marc Newson’s* very well-designed interior for Qantas – it is money that does the talking, something that to a very large extent colours the entire experience. Today, airlines order standard services from DeSteer and the ticket office – that was the company’s proud standard bearer in the sixties – has lost all relevance. Finn Juhl’s Scandinavian interiors for 33 SAS ticket offices would never have seen the light of day now. Instead, many airlines choose to focus on airport lounges. In December, Finnair’s new via.spa will open at Helsinki-Vantaa airport, offering harried passengers the chance to partake of a Finnish sauna. At the same time, their via.lounge will open with an interior from Finnish furniture brand Isku. Finnair have also worked together with the architect office KoKo3 on the more traditional lounges Long Haul and Silver Lounge. Here they want to give the visitors a crash course in Finnish design.
“Although it is not just a matter of filling a room with Finnish classics. When you work with Finnair, you have rather a limited colour palette to work with. All the textiles must be fireproof and withstand wear and tear, and the furniture should ideally be anchored. Then you have to think of safety too. Everything that could be used as a weapon is prohibited,” explains KoKo3’s Jukka Halminen. “Nowadays everything should ideally be ecologically produced: this is a very important aspect,” he adds.
Design must be light
Perhaps it is just the environment that is aviation’s new design challenge. Everything on board must be lighter in order to reduce fuel consumption. The most modern aircraft seat on the market weighs only four kilos. At the prototype stage, there is also a tip-up chair from the Aida group, that both eases getting onboard and is also extremely light. But we are only at the beginning. Shortly, airlines will have to consider the heavy china services and glass bottles that are used onboard. Are Ultima Thule’s days numbered? Markku Remes at Finnair doesn’t want to say too much.
“We always use china and glass bottles in Business Class and disposable packaging in Economy Class. But both materials have their pros and cons: it isn’t always obvious which is best to use from an environmental perspective,” he explains.
But however you assess the problem, you can’t get away from the fact that it is today’s low-price airlines – led by Ryanair and EasyJet – that standardise today’s flight industry. Those airlines prefer the low-price chain’s shrill cut-price aesthetics to expensive design collaborations. And perhaps we also give this priority – if we are paying ourselves. How ironic is it that the American low-cost airline JetBlue is about to take over Eero Saarinen’s iconic TWA terminal at JFK? This terminal at one time belonged to the pioneering company TWA and it was the same one which Di Caprio glided through in the film Catch Me If You Can. If nothing else, it shows what measures guide today’s aircraft industry.
Curator Jochen Eisenbrand feels that aviation’s heyday is over for good. He explained this phenomenon a few years ago in the book Airworld for Vitra Design Museum.
“Previously airlines were at the forefront within graphic and other design, but today they are like any other company. When Braniff International declared bankruptcy in the eighties, the glamour that surrounded travel died with them,” Eisenbrand says.
It makes no difference that the new super-plane Airbus A380 was launched like a luxurious and modern cruise ship.
“For in the end, the airline company always uses traditional seats and seating arrangements to get in as many passengers as possible. So I believe that first class will become even more luxurious. This is where airline companies can distinguish themselves and show off their national identity. And soon a plane will be introduced that can handle greater atmospheric humidity and have larger windows. But unfortunately it will not be more glamorous than that.”