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Tag: CX

  • Wallpaper* on the new gates at Taiwan’s Taoyuan Airport

    Tianna Williams, writing for Wallpaper*:

    The eight new gates (which extend from D10 to D18) are generous in width and offer long, clear sightlines to allow for smooth, pleasant and efficient travel.

    …The colour palette is a mix of yellow, orange and burgundy, and you progress from one hue to another as you move along the concourse, allowing for easy gate identification. The silver façade, designed to control glare and heat, allows natural light to shine through the double-height space, offering views across the airfield.

    The building’s structure helps form a variety of internal volumes through the use of different ceiling heights. This creates a wave-like visual effect when travelling through its spaces. The bespoke halo light fittings animate the ceilings. The final touch is the 300m length of public artworks, nodding to Taiwanese culture.

    Taipei is a hub for China Airlines, EVA, and Starlux; it’s also a focus city for Cathay.

  • Wellness is the future of airport lounges

    Cathay is launching a new lounge design when The Wing, First reopens in Hong Kong later this year. Details about the concept and dining areas in this interview with Executive Traveller. One quote from Guillaume Vivet, Cathay’s General Manager of Customer Experience Design, stood out to me:

    “We think about how do you deliver good wellness, a good refreshing proposition” Vivet explains, describing this proposition as “something different that achieves more for our customers to be refreshed, to be relaxed, and in the theme of the whole wellness area.”

    To me, this is the airport lounge frontier. Look at what Aman is doing with wellness at their resorts: spas, meditation, yoga, saunas, sound therapy. I can’t think of a time these would be more welcome than during a long stopover or delay.

  • TIL: Cathay’s in-flight entertainment system tells you which bathrooms are in use

    Just tap on the bathroom symbol in the top right corner and you’ll see a map showing your seat and the bathrooms that are available or occupied. Works great, just like the rest of Cathay’s gorgeous new system.

  • oneworld in 2026

    (If you’re new here, welcome. Spheres is where I post news and commentary about flying with oneworld and whatever goes along with that. You can also get these posts in a free newsletter. One email per week.)

    Here are the routes, planes, services, and other changes that caught my eye for 2026.

    oneworld

    Alaska

    American

    British

    Cathay

    Fiji

    Finnair

    Iberia

    JAL

    Malaysia

    Oman

    • New routes from Muscat to Singapore, Copenhagen (via Baghdad), and Taif
    • Retiring the B737-800 and 900-ER

    Qantas

    • New routes between the Gold Coast to Auckland; Sydney to Samoa (via Auckland), and Port Moresby
    • New lounges: refurbished Business lounge in Los Angeles,4 new lounge in Hobart, and refurbished regional lounges
    • Free wifi on international routes flown by the A330, B787, and A380
    • Project Sunrise test flights

    Qatar

    Royal Air Maroc

    Royal Jordanian

    SriLankan

    —

    1. If there is a new member airline from India, it will be IndiGo. The only other major airline, Air India, is a Star Alliance member. IndiGo partnered with four SkyTeam members in June, but it also has ties with American, British, JAL, Qantas, and Qatar. ↩︎
    2. Alaska and American are following the same playbook for wifi: it’s free because a cellular network is sponsoring it, and you’ll only get it if you’re a member of the airline’s loyalty program. I hope they’ll spare members of each other’s programs or non-US oneworld airlines from having to sign up for an account that will never get used. ↩︎
    3. Ditto. ↩︎
    4. The concept photo suggests that the iconic Eames Lounge Chairs aren’t coming along for the ride. ↩︎

  • Monocle: How New York airports are making US air travel great again

    Henry Rees-Sheridan:

    At $8bn (€7bn), LaGuardia’s redevelopment was one of the most expensive airport projects in US history. But it is dwarfed in cost and scale by the ongoing redevelopment of JFK, which is focused on two largely independent terminal refurbishments. A new Terminal 1 will cater exclusively to international passengers, while a redeveloped Terminal 6 will serve domestic and international routes.

    …For Barry Yanku of architecture firm Corgan, the project’s lead designer, the challenge is to create a sense of civic grandeur, as Saarinen managed, while meeting the technical requirements of a modern terminal. “This is our front door here in New York,” he says. There is hope that if the JFK project is successful, it will prove the effectiveness of public-private partnerships as a way of funding airports and provide inspiration for other long-maligned American hubs. 

    LGA is still hamstrung by poor ground connectivity, but deserves every award it’s been given. Meanwhile, the new JFK terminals look fantastic. One caveat: Cathay and Qatar travelers with a domestic connection will soon have to change terminals, since those airlines are moving out of T8, while American and the newly-moved-in Alaska are staying put.