How to disembark: a bright idea for passengers

n times of COVID a staggered row-by-row disembarkation has become common practice, supported by verbal cues from the cabin crew.

It will not come as a surprise that the “mad rush” of passengers offboarding before it’s their turn, has made it to many listings of most annoying inflight travel habits. During COVID this habit seems to be creating an additional discomfort, with all the other safety health measures in place.

The COVID-19 pandemic and new health and safety guidelines to abide by during the air travel journey made it necessary to find new adaptations.

Lighting the way

In response to preemptive passenger offboarding, smart Airbus engineers are introducing a solution to ensure an orderly and safe way to disembark, avoiding crowding of the aisles and keeping everyone onboard comfortable.

The solution is a novel lighting design based on simple traffic guiding principles: the scenario uses different cabin illumination combinations to indicate the rows which are designated to disembark next. The lighting scenarios complement the verbal cues given by the cabin crew to facilitate an orderly and rush-free departure from the plane.

So, how does this solution work in practice? Lighting designers and software engineers programmed scenarios enabling one colour or a combination of colours at a time to be spaced out in a certain way and in a certain direction: front to back, or back to front.

The colour schemes can be adapted to each airline, whether it is based on the combination of colours which works best for the region or country, or the airline’s brand.