Technology –
Airline Of The Future: ‘Poppi Airlines’
Have you heard of Poppi Airlines? Â If you haven’t, you soon will. Â This futuristic airline is being called the Uber of air travel that will revolutionize the travel industry!
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Once upon a time, airplane travel was a luxurious event.  However, with over-crowded flights, non-existent leg room, the nickel-and-diming at every turn, and a new level of service called “last class” so that passengers get absolutely nothing, today’s airlines have become nothing more than a flying bus. Well, Poppi Airlines wants to change all of that with a travel experience designed exclusively for customer comfort and enjoyment.
Imagine flying in a state-of-the-art “cinema class.” Consider the airline handling your baggage from the moment you leave home, then delivering it to your destination upon arrival (Yep, no more baggage claim nightmares). Ponder the thought of actually wanting the dreaded middle seat, which would come with sponsored treats and prizes.
Poppi is being created to challenge the world’s airlines to listen to travelers’ age-old complaints and come up with enjoyable solutions customers can connect to.  They hope to bring the same disruption to the airline industry that Uber brought to taxis and AirBnB brought to hotels — all without Poppi ever having to actually exist.
“What we wanted to do with Poppi is envision those disruptions now so that airlines operating today can start implementing them,” said Devin Liddell, the principal brand strategist behind Poppi. “The airline business model and how airlines operate both present a lot of opportunities for reinvention.”
Consider this: Basic improvements like minimizing the tiresome “gate lurking” wait before boarding a flight can be achieved by an app providing real-time information. Baggage can be tracked safely by RFID tags, so that it can be dropped off as early as possible — at train stations on the way to the terminal, perhaps — and returned to hotels on the other side.  Also, moving to a different flight or changing your seat would become a social networking experience between customers, avoiding the airline completely.
“A lot of these opportunities — like how airlines handle baggage — are obvious because the current model is broken or, at the very least, doesn’t serve passengers very well” Liddell added.
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The Poppi Airlines class system would focus on providing different experiences, rather than quality tiers. “Cinema class” would be a special entertainment section of an airline, where exclusive movies and other unique media would take center stage. “Click class” would be for frequent short-haul fliers, where specially designed smart baggage would “click” into place at a passenger’s seat. Then there’s “promotional class” for the middle seat of the row, which would partner brands with the airline to offer special gifts and services for the “unlucky” flier.
The challenge was to offer a better experience for customers without increasing costs. According to Liddel “everything we did was focused on helping airlines improve the passenger experience while also improving their bottom lines.”
Liddell explained what Poppi hopes to achieve, without the start-up ever having to start-up.
“We want to create a vision for a different way forward. One of the reasons we worked very hard to demonstrate Poppi as an actual, real-life airline was to show how that vision could be implemented. More than anything, we want airlines to look at Poppi and find inspiration for how they could change how they do things for the better, now and in the future,” he said.
“We wanted to prototype innovations that airlines could make their own,” Liddell continued. “The innovations we’re showing with Poppi are meant to provoke important discussions inside airlines about how they operate, because our present is not necessarily our future. In my opinion, innovation is always about challenging the status quo and illuminating a better way forward. That’s what we did with Poppi.”
Teague, the company behind the concept of Poppi Airlines, is no stranger to aviation. Teague helped shape the current state of passenger experience through a 5-year collaboration with Boeing for the launch of the 787 Dreamliner, as well as earlier classic interior cabins for the 707 and 747 planes.
With most domestic airlines seemingly comfortable with the status quo, Liddell had a message. “The biggest mistake any business can make is to believe in the illusion of constancy — the idea that things won’t change, because they always do.”
Poppi Airlines may only be an outline of “the airline of the future” but Liddell wants the airlines to listen, and Teague’s longstanding influence on the look and feel of the aviation industry backs him up.
Wow I wish this became a real airline. This is very impressive and would totally change the airline industry. Thanks for sharing DJ.