Lufthansa Allegris Business Class

A cabin for everyone

Designed to meet the needs of diverse passengers in a changing world, Pearson Lloyd’s Allegris Business Class seat and cabin experience was launched by Lufthansa in Spring 2023.

The Allegris business class cabin experience is rooted in a year-long, multi-faceted co-creation programme of primary research and ideation conducted by Pearson Lloyd and Lufthansa, alongside sector partners, which encompassed an over-arching industry review, individual passenger interviews, creative workshops, mega-trend mapping and creating new user profiles and future landscapes.

The research revealed that business class is no longer a one-note category for corporate travel. With more people in control of where and how they work, business travel has opened up to a broader user base of travellers who do not want to compromise their travel experience. These ‘master’s of space and time’ might be creatives or freelancers. They might be travelling solo, or with colleagues or families. They might be looking to relax, sleep, work, meet, or be entertained in transit. Given the multiplicity of user needs, a single-concept solution would no longer be enough.

A detailed process of prototyping followed. Six cabin layouts were built at 1:1 scale to evaluate user experience and ergonomics. Out of the research, a multi-seat layout was chosen, which encompasses seven different seat types in the Allegris business-class cabin design to reflect the varying needs of passengers.

The Allegris cabin rethinks the long-haul travel experience

All modes of transport are still dominated by single-concept business-class experiences. Innovation is largely limited to the cosmetic and ergonomic. Pearson Lloyd’s approach for Lufthansa encompasses not just the seat, but the complete traveller experience, maximizing flexibility to accommodate changing needs. The modular, multi-seat environment includes seven seat types that can be booked depending on the travel experience required – whether solo and working privately en route, or travelling sociably with others.

The major innovation from our perspective is choice for the consumer. This concept moves away from a strictly modular single element repeated across the cabin and responds more to the individual and varied needs we see in passengers flying day to day. It allows a passenger to fly while working, private and isolated, or to relax and talk to a colleague in a different seat configuration. It delivers choice beyond simply opting to use a feature or not. The cabin thus becomes a dynamic space created by the layout, not just a space filled by repeating rows of seats.
Luke Pearson Director, Pearson Lloyd

Allegris business class has Pearson Lloyd’s two decades of expertise in enhancing the travel experience

The Allegris business-class project is the culmination of years of research and ideation, and a 15+-year partnership between Lufthansa and Pearson Lloyd. The studio has a two-decade track record of ground-up innovation evolving and elevating long-haul passenger experiences across all modes of mass transport. 

To ensure the best possible passenger experience and minimise compromise where possible, Pearson Lloyd designed every seat to be bespoke to the aircraft that it is intended for. Over eight years, Pearson Lloyd built ergonomic models at 1:1 scale for each of Lufthansa’s long-haul aircraft: B747-8, B777-9, A350 and B787-9. Human-scale testing enabled Pearson Lloyd to ensure not only that diverse user needs were met, but also to maximise cabin efficiency, guarantee manufacturing efficiency, and optimise material and resource use in production.

The project, spanning seats, galleys and lavatories, includes the development of a completely new suite of colour, materials and finishes. Hard and soft, textiles and foils, the pallet builds on the classical blue foundation of the Lufthansa brand to bring to life the new Business class experience through texture, weave, pattern and colour.

The palette was designed to build on Lufthansa’s heritage and our previous business-class seat, while also taking the brand forward by bringing more soft materials into the seat space, offering more texture and depth. This results in a look and feel that we are more used to in our private lives, something less corporate, more distinctive and characterful.
Tom Lloyd Director, Pearson Lloyd
Working with Pearson Lloyd on the strategy and design of Allegris, the new Lufthansa Business Class cabin, added great valuable knowledge to understand and rethink the long-haul travel experience. Through a rigorous process of primary research, creating user profiles and prototyping at 1:1 scales we were able to confidently meet the needs of diverse passengers in a changing world.
Kai Peters Senior Director Customer Experience Design, Lufthansa Group
Following decades of travel experience and 15 years with us at Lufthansa, Pearson Lloyd translated a complex global project into a practical solution for the future landscape of travel.
Christoffer Stratmann Head of Aircraft Seating, Lufthansa Group

Please see our vision for Swiss Business Class Seat and Cabin based on the same physical seat but with an entirely new material palette. This design was developed and envisioned by PearsonLloyd to transform the seat to support Swiss brand and its core values.