
Emirates Planes Could Be Going Windowless - mparramon
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-07/would-you-travel-on-a-windowless-plane/9843722
======
crazygringo
It would make me sad to remove windows on small commuter jets, since it's so
much fun looking out the window and you spend a significant proportion of the
flight closer to the ground anyways, watching interesting things like cities.

But on long-haul flights like Emirates has? Only 2/10 people per row have a
window seat to start with, and airlines usually require everyone to close
their window shade anyways for much/most of the trip, for people who want to
sleep.

Sure you lose a bit of romance, but honestly for the majority of the
passengers and for most of the time there's going to be zero difference...
except burning less fuel means being better for the environment and hopefully
slightly cheaper tickets.

~~~
Alex3917
If it really saves 50% of the aircraft weight, it's crazy that long haul
airplanes today are even _allowed_ to have windows.

~~~
cecilpl2
I can't believe that's possible. I really want to know where that number came
from.

Maybe you could reduce the weight of just the frame of the fuselage by 50%,
but I bet you'd save at most 2-3% of the total takeoff weight, once you
include fuel, wings, tail, engines, gear, cabin, baggage, people, cockpit,
etc.

Edited: I looked into this more deeply and found the following:
[https://aerospace-europe.eu/media/books/CEAS2015_211.pdf](https://aerospace-
europe.eu/media/books/CEAS2015_211.pdf)

It claims a total possible weight reduction on an A320 from 2155kg to 1560kg,
or 600kg off the fuselage (plus an additional 150kg elsewhere for a total
savings of 750kg). An A320 weighs 42,000kg empty and 78,000kg at takeoff.
2155kg is probably the weight of the fuselage frame sections containing the
windows - makes sense that you could save 50% off _that piece_.

That's a reduction of 1% or so off the takeoff weight.

Also, note that cargo planes are already windowless. I couldn't find a good
example of a plane that has both freight and passenger versions that are
otherwise identical.

~~~
dmurray
> It claims a total possible weight reduction on an A320 from 2155kg to
> 1560kg...An A320 weighs 42,000kg empty

Does this seem odd? The fuselage only accounts for 5% of the empty weight of
the plane. I checked your sources and that's what I see too, but it still
sounds low. Where does the rest of the weight go? The engines weigh about 4600
kg total. Seats weigh 35 kg x 200 or about 7000 kg. That leaves 28,000 kg.
Wings? Landing gear?

~~~
forapurpose
Fuel (all numbers approximate):

An A320 carries around 25,000 L of fuel.[0] Jet fuel weighs ~0.81 kg/L (it
varies by temperature).[1][2]

25,000 L * 0.81 kg/L = 20,250 kg = 44,550 lbs.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A320_family](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A320_family)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_fuel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_fuel)

[2] [https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/48785/how-is-
fu...](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/48785/how-is-fuel-weight-
calculated)

~~~
dmurray
Surely fuel is specifically not included in the plane's "empty weight".

~~~
forapurpose
I misread your comment. I would expect that fuel would be excluded from 'empty
weight'.

------
PrimHelios
Even with virtual windows, I think knowing that I can't directly see outside
would make me extremely claustrophobic, and I think a lot of people would feel
similarly.

All in all this is a cool concept, but I don't think it will be executed well.
What happens when my "window" inevitably breaks (as technology is apt to do)
and the illusion of being able to see is broken? What about annoying dead
pixels or color banding? I can't imagine the displays being used are very high
quality.

~~~
qaq
"I can't imagine the displays being used are very high quality" ??? if they
provide the amount of savings outlined I doubt spending extra 200K on quality
screens will be an issue

~~~
philipov
If they provide the savings outlined, those savings will be pocketed as
profit. Productivity improvements don't mean employees get to work less,
either.

~~~
qaq
It's pretty hard to argue that airlines (at least outside of US) is a very
competitive biz.

~~~
billforsternz
It's an extraordinarily competitive business.

------
larkeith
A counterexample to the majority view in this thread:

The idea is cool, but I could never take a flight in a windowless plane. While
I am generally only mildly claustrophobic, "artificial windows" have always
induced an uncanny valley-esque increase in discomfort due to the lack of
parallax; the reminder of what's outside while still being evidently not a
direct view might well be worse for me than no window at all. Though I'll
usually spend flights reading or on my laptop/phone, the presence of the
window in my peripheral vision is essential for my comfort even on a shorter
flight, and the concept of being trapped in a box with no direct view of the
outside (and no guaranteed knowledge of if something goes wrong) for 10-12
hours is the stuff of nightmares. The fact that digital windows can _fail_ or
display false information only makes it more horrifying.

Several commentors have made the comparison of either nighttime flights or a
train in a tunnel. Nights are never pitch-black, and between moon/starlight
and the plane's own running lights, even if you encounter high-altitude clouds
there is always some visible outside environment. The same goes for train
tunnels, with the replacement of tunnel lights instead of moonlight, and
significantly more tactile feedback on the tracks compared to an airplane.

~~~
Edd314159
I can absolutely see how a windowless plane could make someone feel
claustrophobic.

Equally, even though I fly every few months (so you’d think I’d be used to it
by now) I actually don’t like being reminded that I’m 38,000ft in the air. It
freaks me out. I _like it_ when I can’t see outside the window into the
clouds. (However, I do kinda like seeing out the window while landing, but
that’s only a tiny fraction of the overall flight.)

~~~
larkeith
I can absolutely see that view. Knowing there's nothing but miles of air
between me and solid ground is disconcerting, to say the least, but I don't
think I would be able to divorce myself from that thought in a windowless
plane - I've flown too many times to not inherently be aware of the altitude,
whether I can see it or not.

------
mrfusion
It’s only a matter of time before they put ads on the windows.

~~~
ryandrake
Couldn’t believe I had to scroll down this far to find the real killer app for
this. Even if a relatively upscale airline like Emirates won’t coat these with
ads, what do you think a discount cattle hauler will do with this screen space
if the concept catches on?

------
oliveshell
For me, the biggest issue with “virtual windows“ would be the lack of
parallax. It would be very jarring to not see the view change as you move
relative to the window.

They could implement head tracking to solve this, but that breaks down as soon
as more than one person need to look through the same window.

~~~
gervase
I don't think it would be a huge issue for the most part, simply because the
parallax from your head movement is minimal due to the relatively long
distance involved from the plane to the ground. Most of the parallax you'd
experience in a plane would come from the plane's movement, which would be
replicated due to the cameras' relative movement as well.

~~~
pavel_lishin
But the parallax is pretty huge from me to the window to the ground. If I lean
forward, I can suddenly see _a lot_ of ground I couldn't see before; if I lean
back, I can see all the ground in front of the plane.

------
mannykannot
> it would save 50 per cent of the weight of an aircraft.

Surely this is nonsense, even if you are considering empty weight, when you
take the engines and main spar into consideration?

~~~
coredog64
It's a fairly easy number to check: Freight aircraft don't have windows or
window frames. What is the delta on their empty weight compared to a passenger
version?

~~~
paul_milovanov
I'll speculate that a freight 747 is still fundamentally structurally a plane
designed to have windows (with the correspondingly reinforced fuselage) but
with minor tweaks.

I'd be very surprised if that's not the case. You'd need a plane that's
designed from the ground up to not have windows in any configuration.

~~~
rbanffy
Still, if the difference is that brutal, there would be a huge niche for
planes that have no passenger version and are designed to never have windows.

------
Darthy
For an example of this been done well, check out Royal Caribbean's Virtual
Balconies:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4__AIB8Bl-4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4__AIB8Bl-4)

Note that RCI did not remove any windows, but instead used tech to give a
window to people in inside cabins where there are no windows. IMHO this should
be the way to go for planes as well: Give everybody a window seat, with VR.
And then also use that VR to show all those movies in a virtual cinema, show
VR games etc.

~~~
decebalus1
I don't know about you, but I find that to be dystopian and weird. Nothing
against windowless airplanes but damn, that thing is weird and scary. It's
straight out of Black Mirror [1]. One of these days some PM will have the
great idea to overlay some promo bullshit on top of it and in the future
basically make you watch 'safety' messages or ads.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits)

~~~
Darthy
Note that you can turn it off at any time. And there are no ads there, it's
just a pure 4K 60fps stream from the bridge with some artifical railings
rendered on top. There are even 2 cameras, one for each side, and you get the
view in the correct direction.

My position is also to not remove any windows, but give the 90% of passengers
without a window seat a window seat.

~~~
decebalus1
> Note that you can turn it off at any time. And there are no ads there, it's
> just a pure 4K 60fps stream from the bridge with some artifical railings
> rendered on top. There are even 2 cameras, one for each side, and you get
> the view in the correct direction.

I'm not saying that your wrong or that's it's not interesting/cool, I'm just
saying give it a few years and some profit forecast misses and then we'll
talk.

------
koolba
> Are there any safety concerns?

> Not really, aviation expert Douglas Drury from the University of South
> Australia says.

Not a common need (thankfully) but windows also provide a way to look _into_
plane as well, say in times of emergency or a hostage taking. That’s one of
the reasons you’re required to open them when you take off and land.

I wonder if their answer to that is a live video feed of the inside of the
plane to the tower.

~~~
tetrep
> That’s one of the reasons you’re required to open them when you take off and
> land.

I fly pretty regularly in the US and am unaware of this rule, where have you
encountered it? I've only ever heard crew request windows be _closed_ to
mitigate the greenhouse effect and keep the plane a bit cooler.

~~~
jessaustin
I don't fly that often anymore but this rule has been universal in USA and
abroad for decades. I don't doubt there are some cabin crews that DGAF, but
they are exceptions.

------
bahmboo
Here's video of current emirates virtual windows. Initially I didn't realize
they were virtual. Guessing a lot more obvious in person, but still
impressive:

[https://twitter.com/ZachHonig/status/936584456755929089](https://twitter.com/ZachHonig/status/936584456755929089)

------
sofaofthedamned
I'd imaging these would go blank in an emergency or at landing/takeoff. Can't
imagine that reducing the terror factor for certain folks.

~~~
lmnt
No reason to believe that they would, I've been on multiple planes where it
was possible to bring up different camera feeds of the plane on the screen in
front of me. The coolest of these was filming the plane from the top of the
tail wing so it almost looked like a video game feed.

~~~
NegativeLatency
This sounds really cool, what carrier and aircraft type were you on?

~~~
reaperducer
Singapore's A380's LAX-NRT have this.

JAL had it, too, on ORD-NRT. A member of the crew would switch to different
cameras, presumably based on what there was to see (front landing gear view
during takeoff, just clouds straight down during most of the flight, etc...).
I haven't flown JAL in close to a decade, so I can't say if its planes still
have this.

------
trevyn
“Greatly reduced number of windows” is a more accurate statement, which seems
to be a much less scary thing.

~~~
flurdy
Exactly.

No windows at all = travel sickness, panic attacks, no spotting of fires, the
issue with exits in emergency landings etc.

E.g. 80% fewer windows = none of the problems above. True the window seat is
then mostly less desirable, but on a long haul, they see nothing for 99% of
the journey anyway.

~~~
rbanffy
> they see nothing for 99% of the journey anyway.

Endless clouds below, dark blue skies above, the occasional contrail of
another plane on a slightly different route, the moon over the ocean, the
stars, auroras, sunrises, sunsets, large ocean liners or cargo ships below,
wind farms, mountains, cities, the Alps, the Grand Canyon, endless patterns of
irrigation. The Earth is unfathomably beautiful from above.

------
PuffinBlue
Windowless planes would be a useful step. If people can get used to not having
windows then there's more scope to change the design of the aircraft, so
something like Boeing's Blended Wing design[0] might have a chance of not
failing before it gets off the ground.

[https://science.howstuffworks.com/transport/flight/modern/fl...](https://science.howstuffworks.com/transport/flight/modern/flying-
wing2.htm)

~~~
DaiPlusPlus
The Blended wing concept has issues with evacuating passengers quickly and
safely enough - nothing to do with windows.

~~~
PuffinBlue
Good point. Is the target still 90 seconds to evacuate the entire aircraft?

I can see how with the central compartments it could be more difficult to meet
that sort of time constraint. It'll be interesting to follow how the engineers
seek to create a design for evacuating in time.

~~~
rbanffy
Just put economy in the middle, first and business closer to emergency exits.

------
kingkawn
A joy of flying is to look and see the world itself directly in the highest
resolution possible; reality.

~~~
tln
Yes, its an experience :)

But really, that is only accessible for passengers in window seats and on day
time flights. With Emirates, that is a small %age of the time! 2 out of 10
passengers per row, and windows have to be down overnight.

For this airline, a passengers' opportunity to gaze out a window is simply
less.

Every emirates flight I've taken has included tail, nose and belly camera
shots to screen right in front of me. Blurry, not the highest possible
resolution, but a FAR more interesting perspective!

Not every experience that a window gives you can be replicated. As the plane
banks over the bay, spotting your house or favorite park is probably never
going to happen with cameras, nor being able to watch the ground crew work.

But for the bulk of the flight, the takeoff, the landing, man the external
camera feeds are great. As a passenger, I'd gladly ditch the windows for
better cameras, on pretty much any flight.

~~~
netsharc
I always pay so I can pick seats, and I think I've had 2 out of 20 flights in
the last 5 or so years where I was not sitting by a window.

Looking at the landscape through the screen would be like watching a live
performance on your phone's screen (which is, surprise, a loooot of people
do).

And people saying "What's the difference between a windowless plane and a
plane where all the windows are shuttered, the people insisting on windows are
stupid!" are... stupid. With a windowless plane I think my anxiety would cause
claustrophobia. With a windowed plane I know I won't get that anxiety...

------
Angostura
Does anyone know why the standard seatback entertainment systems in planes
don't have channels showing feeds from an external camera or cameras? I would
love to be able to watch the scenery or cloud formations.

Is it a security issue? It seems like such a no-brainer.

~~~
praneshp
Haven't read the article yet, do you mean airlines other than emirates? They
have 3 or 4 cameras with decent views, but you cannot really make out clouds

------
taoistextremist
I get this feeling that the displayed images just won't be the same, not the
least because they'd just be flat images instead of what you see when you
normally look out. As someone who regularly requests window seats this doesn't
appeal to me in the least, but I don't fly Emirates so I guess it doesn't
really matter. I suppose I might be in the minority, though, of people who
love just staring out the window, especially on takeoff and descent.

------
jrockway
I don't have a problem with this. The one guy that opens their window on an
"overnight" flight that is actually during the day kind of messes up
everything.

I have certainly been on some nifty flights where you could watch
thunderstorms out the window the entire time (I made a neat timelapse)... but
in the end, I guess it doesn't matter.

~~~
hrnnnnnn
The nice thing about the 787 Dreamliner is that the windows don't have
physical shades. They have remote controlled dimmers that the crew can operate
centrally.

------
elihu
I assume that the pilot will still have windows, but it's possible to imagine
an aircraft with no windows at all.

An interesting thought experiment is to consider a car with no windows; the
driver wears a head-mounted display and sees the environment via a 3-D model
reconstructed from cameras.

My initial reaction is that it seems terribly unsafe to have a safety-critical
system like that with no backup if your HMD fails for some reason.

On the other hand, I could imagine becoming accustomed to seeing all around
without obstruction, and feeling uncomfortable driving a regular car with it's
opaque pillars and huge expanses of fragile glass.

Another consideration is that encountering a car with no windows would feel
really creepy. We're used to be able to make eye contact.

------
wyld_one
3 things: "would you like the upgrade package that shows the outside?" and
"Ads on windows" Gee joy, more useless garbage to have to listen to. On the
other hand you would have some joker make a virus to have the displays put a
buzzing insect on it.

------
gooseyard
I look forward to being able to pinch zoom to magnify interesting landmarks

------
yalooze
Offtopic: I found the article format quite hard to read. The mix of headings,
bold, block quotes and embedded media made it feel very messy and I was never
sure when the article was finished.

~~~
vidanay
For about the last 10 years of online "journalism". Hate it.

------
nmridul
What about opening the window shades before flights land / take off ? I
thought it was for the firefighters to see inside during an emergency. Or was
it not ?

~~~
wohlergehen
IIRC it is mostly so that the passenger's eyes adapt to the outside light
level in case of an evacuation.

------
Johnny555
Cabin crews (at least on some airlines) tell you to open the window shades for
landing and takeoff in the name of "safety":

[https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-
advice/airline...](https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-
advice/airline-staff-reveal-why-window-shades-must-be-kept-open-during-
takeoff-and-landing-a6899681.html)

So why is it safe to remove the windows entirely?

~~~
uhnuhnuhn
This is addressed in the article.

------
rbanffy
I'd never, ever, under no circumstances, want to fly on a plane without
windows. I _hate_ the 787's stupid way of taking away my control of the window
for the idiotic gimmick of controlling transparency through buttons. I like to
see the sunrise. I like to see the sunset. I like to see the clouds below and
the dark sky above.

If people want no windows or a completely dark place, let them add walls,
curtains or put bags on their heads.

------
ohazi
This will make a lot of people severely airsick. I'm a pilot with an iron
stomach, but one sure-fire way to make me queasy is to hide visual cues from
the natural horizon during maneuvering (i.e. during takeoff and landing).

You don't have to have a window seat to benefit from real windows -- even a
very slight peripheral view of nearby windows, or a view of shadows cast on
the inside of the cabin are enough to make you feel better.

------
mrfusion
What would be really awesome would be to find a transparent material to build
the fuelsolage out of and then windows are just the unpainted areas.

~~~
ilarum
Airbus revealed a similar concept a while ago.
[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2003052/Airbu...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2003052/Airbus-
unveil-transparent-plane-flying-come-2050.html)

------
vegasje
Take a look at the video linked in the article:

[https://twitter.com/ZachHonig/status/936584456755929089?ref_...](https://twitter.com/ZachHonig/status/936584456755929089?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.abc.net.au%2Fnews%2F2018-06-07%2Fwould-
you-travel-on-a-windowless-plane%2F9843722)

This seems very well executed to me.

------
JBiserkov
I would definitely fly this if there is such an option. And so would many
others, if at least some of the savings are passed on to the consumer.

~~~
spraak
Unlikely. Companies want more profit

~~~
gnode
Such profits aren't usually sustainable when the competition starts doing it.

~~~
jessaustin
When in doubt, they just spend more on marketing. They can all do that at once
without customers benefiting in the slightest.

------
anonlastname
This seems tolerable as long ad they don't start playing the obligatory safety
video on the windows or messing with the feed at all

------
mrfusion
If they did this they should make a viewing area with a big window where
people could take turns visiting.

------
rocky1138
I once flew on a plane that had electric window tints instead of manual
blinds. It was neat, until the airline turned my window off which disabled my
personal control of it. What a frustration, to not be able to control my own
view of the sky!

------
portlander12345
And here I was hoping that with new technology airplanes would eventually have
larger windows...

------
scarejunba
Kill the windows entirely if it can be safely done. I don't care. Cost,
safety, speed. All else is optional.

And wtf are these guys who panic without windows going to do when they have to
close them so others can sleep. I think that's a stupid objection. People are
intelligent. They aren't going to panic for this shit. That's idiotic.

~~~
reaperducer
People already panic on flights. On my last NRT-LAX flight a woman totally
freaked out and started running up and down the aisles screaming.
Unfortunately, the Singapore Air crew was far too polite and spoke soothingly
to her for far too many hours of a very long flight.

I've also seen someone freak out during turbulence on a CDG-IAH flight. The
Air France flight crew was less patient and dragged her into the back of the
plane where she was presumably restrained or sedated or something.

If you've never been on a flight where someone lost their shit, you don't fly
very much. Or at least you take short flights.

~~~
scarejunba
I think I'd like it if airlines would mark their flights as "panicky person
onboard", etc.

That way I can just take the later/earlier flight and leave the crackpots to
themselves.

------
SketchySeaBeast
I'm sure the monitors won't help people with air sickness at all.

------
basicplus2
I would have to put on my reading glasses to look at the distant view..

------
whitepoplar
I think this would cause a subset of passengers to have psychotic episodes.
It's not important to constantly look out the windows, but knowing that they
exist gives everyone on the plane psychological comfort.

------
cmurf
I think it's completely perverse. How about saving even more weight and not
building airplanes and traveling anywhere at all? That's just as absurd.

