A not particularly comfortable journey on what was then the world’s longest airline route convinced Jeff O’Neill, an avid traveller, of the need to come up with something better for premium economy seating.

On this episode of the podcast Jeff shares his story of entrepreneurship in the aircraft seating space and how he devised the revolutionary Zephyr seating concept, from the moment he started taking measurements while flying on an A350, all the way to the crowdfunding campaign he launched in order to fund his idea, which was oversubscribed by a factor of eight. Together with the young, but experienced, founders of ACLA Studio (who have been guests of this podcast as well!) he then designed and built a mock up and started gathering interest from airlines.

The Zephyr aircraft seat is like nothing you will find on today’s airlines: seats are stacked on top of each other in a two-level layout (see the renderings in the “Resources” section below") that promises to offer more comfort to the premium economy passenger and, potentially, more revenue to the airline.

It is certainly a big leap for airlines, which are often very conservative when it comes to messing with their cabin arrangements, but Jeff is absolutely determined to make it a reality. And, in addition to the enthusiasm of thousands of crowd-founders, which serve also as a proof of concept of sorts, he has also captured the imagination of the media and enrolled the support of big names of Silicon Valley, such as VC investor Tim Draper.

Tune in for a story of creativity, boldness, persistence which may well transform the way we travel in premium economy…!

Download this episode from:

Apple Podcasts / iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts or Stitcher

Things we talk about in this episode:

How Jeff came up with the Zephyr seat idea
What is Zephyr Aerospace and how is it different from traditional seats
How Jeff built a mock-up of his concept to get the attention of airlines at the Hamburg Aircraft Interiors Show
Why is it difficult to to get airlines to invest in disruptive concepts
How Jeff ran a highly successful crowdfunding campaign to fund his project and prove there is latent demand for Zephyr’s premium economy seating concept