In 2013, KLM gave its World Business Class a world class makeover. DDB & Tribal Worldwide saw an opportunity to highlight the airline’s innovation and sustainability while it introduced the new World Business Class to a wider audience. (Air France KLM has been ranked most sustainable airline on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) for the past 10 years.)

In fact while designer, Hella Jongerius’, guiding principle for the new cabin interior was to optimise privacy and comfort to make passengers feel at home, it makes use of sustainable materials. Apart from the new full-flat seat measuring more than two metres in length, the new interior also has carpets that consist partly of discarded KLM ladies uniforms, new wall decorations, curtains, blankets, cushions and seat upholstery.

This ignited DDB & Tribal Worldwide’s idea to recycle discarded pieces of the old World Business Class interior to make new travel products. Students from the Design Academy Eindhoven – where the new business class designer, Hella Jongerius, was educated – were invited to take what they wanted – seats, carpeting, seatbelts, TV screens…and fashion them into usable travel items.

Fourteen students from the Man & Identity faculty at the Design Academy Eindhoven used their creative ingenuity to create slippers, a travel bag that transforms itself into a pillow, playful airplane shoe outers, a ‘surround sound’ hood, phone holders, a backpack…Materials used for these prototypes were at least 70% recycled.

Eight of the most striking recycled prototypes were shown off in window displays at Dutch department store, De Bijenkorf, in Amsterdam from June 1 – June 15, while various elements of KLM’s new World Business Class cabin interior, including tableware designed by Marcel Wanders and cushions and blankets designed by Hella Jongerius, are on show in the men’s department on the first floor.

Esther te Pas, client services director at DDB & Tribal Worldwide, Amsterdam, commented, “We wanted to put the KLM World Business in a new spotlight and reach a wider audience. We found a perfect match between the Dutch design in letting students from the Design Academy Eindhoven create new designs with the materials originating from the old World Business Class, and the new World Business Class, designed by Design Academy Eindhoven alumnus Hella Jongerius.”

Plane to Product credits: 

Agency (concept & creation): DDB & Tribal Amsterdam

Design prototypes: Design Academy Eindhoven

Design mobile display: KNOL

Technique: Beam Brothers

Decor: Projectcolor