Northern Ireland based Thompson Aero Seating is renowned for its innovative design and manufacture of premium aircraft seating solutions. Focussing on premium cabin passenger seats, the company has developed well established products like the Vantage seat, which has offered higher-density fully-flat beds to airlines for two decades. This successful product has delivered a high calibre list of clientele including major airlines such as Delta Air Lines, Lufthansa, and Singapore Airlines. Since then, the manufacturer has created a catalogue of Vantage products that have matched the diverse needs of the airline industry, all based off the success of this one core product, but how has the company managed to keep up with demand?
“The Thompson Aero Seating products have a design philosophy of constant evolution,” states Ross Burns, Head of Industrial Design at Thompson Aero Seating. “There are technically now four products within the Vantage family – the Vantage, VantageXL, VantageSOLO and more recently the VantageNOVA – but within each product there are a number of sub-products, for example with/without suite doors and enhanced front row options. In addition, every seat we produce is a ‘living product’ constantly evolving in each iteration and therefore current versions are hugely different from the initial versions.”
The peak of industrial design
Customisation is also key for many airlines, and this can prove complex for airlines, but Thompson looks to simplify the process, a key to the company’s success. “We develop our own base platforms and can either leave the door open for customisation from the design houses, or we can customise them ourselves.
Our in-house design team have years of experience to accurately tailor realistic opportunities for specific customers, whilst also having a keen eye on progressive and technological business class seat design to make our seats extremely desirable.” continues Burns.
And it seems airlines are looking to reduce friction in bringing new products to life. “Thompson is now doing more and more in-house. We have, Industrial Design, Engineering & Manufacturing teams and we have now added CMF capabilities into the mix.”
While the entire aviation industry is endemically siloed, Thompson Aero Seating believes wholeheartedly in a spirit of collaboration. “Thompson does not have these issues of mis-communication, we are constantly collaborating, which saves huge amounts of time. We are working with the seats every day and have access to full seat models. This ability enables us to quickly create sales bid packs, develop accurate custom customer requests and engineer prototypes. We rapidly evolve the seats with engineering mock-ups to try new things. This is collaboration at a deeper level.”
It helps being an established seat manufacturer, as with it comes a wide range of capabilities that often smaller, start-up rivals have to outsource. “Having our own CMF capabilities is a huge bonus. We have created our own CMF for the presentation of our show seats, which are all in our own Thompson palette. This shows the seats in their best light and what can be achieved if they where to be productised.”
That said, Thompson Aero Seating is also managing a fine line between looking deep at its own processes, but taking a step back to ensure it’s looking at the wider situation too. “We are also aware of what cannot be achieved. As product designers, we test materials and show their capabilities and practicalities. We have experts who forecast future trends and can research new materials and explore requests from customers. With this internal development with are continuously evolving,” Burns summarises.
Engineering its way into the future
Just recently, certain airlines have been plagued by introducing new seats that have yet to complete certification and be fully fit for service. But Aaron Robinson, Head of Design at Thompson Aero Seating explains why the Vantage products haven’t faced the same turbulent challenges. “At Thompson we design for certification rather than certifying a design.”
It’s a simple premise, but one often overlooked by lofty ambitious and sometimes costly concepts. “The engineering team works with the industrial design team from the start. The philosophy is to work with them to see how new seats, innovations and modifications can be certified. This is what gets the seat on the plane.”
And Thompson have embraced a new way of working post COVID, maximising on the company’s global footprint as a real benefit. “Whilst we welcome the challenges our industrial team gives us, ultimately it is no use designing something that looks great but that cannot be certified. At Thompson, the engineering of the seat is considered at the very earliest stage of design. We have a multi-discipline team, working together in design, industrial design, engineering and CMF, from New Zealand and the UK. Working on all fronts and in two time-zones. This makes Thompson hugely productive. The industrial design team in New Zealand may be working on something that needs input from the engineering team in Northern Ireland. Whereas even the most dedicated team will need to sleep, the team in Northern Ireland can give their input, ready for the New Zealand team to be back fresh as the UK heads to bed,” continues Robinson.
Rather than revealing the “seat of the future” at shows like AIX, what Thompson presents is something that can actually work in reality on an aeroplane, even in its concept stage.
“At Thompson we carry out the research and development throughout the design process. Having the collaboration of the team – design, industrial design, and engineering, along with our own in-house testing, we can innovate new dividers, for example, and cycle-test them before they are even seen at a show like AIX.”
The company also honestly admits they would rather deal with internal issues and stressors between engineering and design well before reaching the client’s office saving time and cost. “Customers often don’t really know what they want, they just want it to be the latest and the greatest. The style house wants to be innovative. Engineers want to be safe. There is a clash and that is what often takes the time on a project. At Thompson, however, we butt heads internally before you even see the seat. Having said that though, we don’t have opposing views very often as the industrial design team knows that the engineering team wants and needs, and vice versa. We meet the customer together, putting us two steps ahead.”
It’s clear that Thompson Aero Seating understands the customers, the market, and the industry. A style house may have a customer base of two or three. But Thompson has a huge customer base and can utilise its understanding across the board to bring benefits to all.
Staying ahead of the curve with future forecasting
When coming up with new additions to the Vantage family, it’s more than just ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ it’s about predicting future needs of their customers. “Project strategy is an important aspect of our work at Thompson. Looking at where to go in the future, assessing market movements, considering where the opportunities may lie. We are always looking to the future and continuing the momentum,” Ryan Graham, Principal Designer at Thompson Aero Seating proudly comments.
But how did the new VantageNOVA come about? “It was looking at gaps in the market that was the starting point for our new VantageNOVA. The mix of listening to customers together with our own ideas, which are developed and evolved into Thompson baseline products. In the case of VantageNOVA this was developed entirely offline, albeit with feedback from our customers playing a part in the finished product.
“VantageNOVA represents a strategic and forward-thinking approach to new product development. The focus was on current and future market needs, rather than a purely reactive approach. This benefits both existing platforms and long-term product evolution.”
It can be a risky move to develop and invest in a new concept seat without a clear request from customer. “Thompson took a significant risk in investing in an in-house industrial design team and developing products offline,” Graham continues. “The success of VantageNOVA and its future enhancements hopefully has validated this investment and rewarded that risk. The launch of VantageNOVA First at AIX this year is just a small part of ongoing improvements—the team is already working on future platform developments.
“VantageNOVA is an example of market-led design. Thompson historically didn’t offer a widebody angled seat option and market demand identified a place for it in the Vantage family on extra-widebody platforms. VantageNOVA was designed to fill this gap, aligning with market requirements and complimenting the current platforms.”
It’s clear that the company prides itself on its constant pro-active evolution. “We listen to customers and gather insights from live programmes, identifying snags in existing products and feeding this information into the development pipeline. We conduct market analysis to identify product gaps and match them with customer needs, looking at long-term development from the ground up.”
Thompson’s constant evolvement philosophy has delivered new products like VantageNOVA which will be at AIX this year. Any airline will appreciate having team members with experience in design houses, engineering capabilities and clear design principles. These clear design and engineering perspectives, customer-centric product innovation and in-house collaboration seem to give Thompson a clear advantage in the market, and after experiencing the VantageNOVA first-hand, the proof is clear as day.
