Do you know the feeling of darting across narrow aisles of an airplane to secure a window seat and then cherishing the comfort of being able to watch as you fly through the clouds? If you can relate to any of these experiences, you have probably flown on an airplane and are one of the lucky few people to do so.
Even if you have not actually been on one but have seen these gigantic beasts in movies, pictures, or flying overhead, you might never have thought about the intricacies in design and prolonged labor that goes into the production of this mode of transport. In this blog post I will explore how these aspects of aircraft production expose the disparity between classes and the way they interact with each other.
The airplane is not a universal object – it can only be accessed by some groups. As highlighted by the CEO of Boeing (a leading American Multinational selling aircrafts, amongst other things), believe it or not but “[less] than 20 percent of the world’s population has ever taken a single flight” (Gurdus, 2017). With prices of airplane tickets constantly on the rise, it is becoming even harder for certain sections of society to travel by air. This disparity becomes more distinct when we look at the different divisions within airplanes themselves; while the elite are often seen taking their own charter planes, others have to rely on airlines to fly them. For those unfamiliar with the concept of charter planes, it is when an individual books the entire aircraft (usually smaller planes – 2 to 15 seaters) for themselves or their group; such arrangements often cost thousands of dollars and can only be afforded by the privileged.
One does not even need to point out that the sole existence of such a concept proves the existence of a class divide. But you may not realize how vast this class divide actually is! A typical private jet owner has an average net worth of $US 1.66 billion (WealthX, 2021). While the 0.00003% of the world can actually afford such opulence, the rest of the world resorts to commercial aircrafts owned by airlines (Kotler and Sarkar, 2020).
Let’s explore how class disparity is designed into this system by looking at a particular type of commercial aircraft – the Airbus A380-800. Airbus, one of Boeing’s biggest competitors, produces a double-deck, wide-body aircraft called the ‘A380’; the A380-800, one of its models, is the “world’s largest commercial passenger aircraft” which can theoretically carry “up to 850 passengers,” although is usually flown with a “450 to 550 passenger layout” (Ros, 2019 and British Airways, 2021). Airlines have opted to buy such configurations, which accommodate less passengers, in order to cater to different social stratums.
On an Emirates A380-800 (Emirates is a UAE-based airline which operates a fleet size of over 250 aircrafts – among the largest on the planet; 115 of these are A380-800s), there are typically three different seating sections – First, Business, and Economy Class (Shabina, 2019 and The Emirates Group, 2021). As per Emirates’ tag line, First Class is as “close as it comes to your own private jet”.
In First, the jet-setter experiences the epitome of luxury – from your private suite, to gourmet meals, to the “A380 Shower Spa” (you can bathe onboard) which is cladded with Bvlgari (luxury brand) toiletries, fliers on Emirates’ First Class witness a truly royal treatment. Since individuals who fly First are bound to have an affluent status, such treatment amongst other extravagant offerings is meant to mimic the attention and care they receive in their daily life.
In absolute contrast to the luxury of First, the Economy Class (often referred to as ‘cattle class’) is the lowest travelling option on an Emirates A380 and makes up the majority of the seating on the aircraft. It offers a single seat (which in some cases is not reclinable), and you often hear travelers complain that the food is subpar and, at the end of their journey, they tend to have a stiff body (due to the lack of space to move around). But well, the silver lining is that at least you get a seat on the aircraft – saves you an inordinate amount of time, as compared to any other mode of transportation.
Business Class lies between Economy and First, where it offers a reclinable seat that converts into a fully flat bed, this is coupled with cozy pillows and blankets for a “full night’s rest” (The Emirates Group, 2021). In addition to this, the passenger also enjoys perks such as priority entry, and better quality meals and service.
Some configurations of the Emirates A380-800 also include ‘The Residence’, a three-room suite which includes a living room, a bedroom (with a double-bed), and lavatory (with a shower) all for a single-traveler (or a couple) (Rosen, 2019). In cases, The Residence actually surpasses the offerings that one’s chartered plane might offer.
This range of seating options on an A380 highlights the colossal contrast in the individuals who come from different social strata but yet, fly on the same plane. I also feel that the presence of the three primary classes on the A380 (First, Business, and Economy) symbolize the classes in society – upper, middle, and lower class, with The Residence qualifying as a sub-category and equating to a division within the upper class. This design aspect which exposes the disparity between classes and the way they interact with each other has always bemused me.
An aircraft undergoes years of production and design is a key focus in the entire process. With the A380, for instance, it took over 19 years from the time that Airbus engineers began designing “a ultra-high-capacity airliner” to the time they actually delivered the first Airbus A380 to a customer (Modern Airliners, 2021). From the concept of the plane, to its research and development, to finalizing the design, and then finally beginning construction, a plethora of teams are constantly working to get a plane off the ground. In fact, building the A380 is such a task that at one point, Airbus almost abandoned the project (Krishnamoorthy, 2019).
If you have flown on the Airbus A380-800 before, have you ever noticed the arduous process that building an aircraft entails? This is archetypal of Commodity Fetishism – the concept that commodities are able to obscure their production aspects (in terms of social relations and labor involved). While commodity fetishism necessitates a much broader concept, for the purpose of this blog, we are just looking at it from this aspect.
While flying, or while using any commodity for that matter, we usually only think about the tangible aspects of the products but there’s a lot more underneath the superficial layer and this normally goes unnoticed. I would like to bring your attention to just one example in regard to the A380 – the use of Cobalt for onboard electronic devices.
Cobalt is a mineral essential to the rechargeable lithium-ion batteries that power our devices. In the case of airplanes, it has numerous use cases with probably the most important being, its cruciality in the emergency lighting system.
More than half of the world’s production of this pivotal element takes place in Congo. The process of procuring it is horrendously exploitative, requiring workers (and frequently children) to spend day and night in the underground Congolese mines, often sleeping there too! Here, deaths and injuries are quite common – in particular due to the lack of safety equipment, guidelines, and precautions in such dangerous working conditions. I strongly believe that the labor of these miners is significantly undervalued, with them earning barely $2 a day and our plane tickets amounting to hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars (Hermes Investment, 2021). Besides being underpaid, workers also face long-term consequences – children are born with birth defects due to their parents being involved in the Cobalt supply chain.
Have you even once thought about the hardships that the daily wager goes through when you sat in the comfort of your First class seat? This is just the tip of the iceberg when we come to explore the different design features that commodity fetishism involves.
Back to an A380’s production – after the Cobalt is mined, it is often bought by multinationals who process the minerals in another part of the world. This is a purposeful design facet which uses a global supply chain with the primary motive to reduce costs and maximize profits. Surprisingly, this abusive system forms the backbone of Airbus’ supply chain for the A380 (and other aircrafts).
About four million individual parts produced in 30 countries by fifteen-hundred different companies make up a single A380 (Slutsken, 2018). Such diversity in its production is indicative of a truly global manufacturing process! However beneath the surface, Airbus solely employs such a system for their profit motive. By producing offshore, Airbus benefits from reduced costs of production due to cheaper labor in other countries. Given the massive size of the project of manufacturing an A380, such techniques can save millions of dollars. Alongside this, Airbus also utilizes non-skilled labor whose salary barely scrapes through the minimum wage.
The next time you sit in an aircraft, please do spare a moment to reflect on the design decisions that the airline or manufacturer have made in these gigantic beasts. To spread awareness about such appalling characteristics of this industry and our consumerism behaviors, I urge you to talk to your colleagues about how airplanes have meanings for us that are not linked to its production history.
While the scope of this blog prevented me from discussing how the presence of low-budget airlines further points to the social division in the airline industry; the environmental impact of flying and how it adversely impacts lower classes the hardest; and many other nuanced perspectives to points raised in this article, I hope to cover them in a future blog post.
If you’re interested to read more about the hidden labor history and life of the airplane, check out:
- The Cobalt Pipeline by The Washington Post – Tracing the path from deadly hand-dug mines in Congo to consumers’ phones and laptops https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/batteries/congo-cobalt-mining-for-lithium-ion-battery/
- Here’s why the ultra-rich splash out on private jet travel by David Reid https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/26/heres-why-the-ultra-rich-splash-out-on-private-jet-travel.html
- The Complexity in Design involved to make a plane
A Humiliating End to the Superjumbo Era – Airbus set out to remake air travel with its ambitious A380. Here’s how it happened, and what went wrong by Anand Krishnamoorthy https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-02-14/airbus-a380-superjumbo-how-it-happened-and-what-went-wrong - Problems at a national stage (faced within the US) are seen in perspective of social concerns seen globally
Growing Class Divide on Airplanes Represents the US’ larger Divide by Sarah Browning
https://truthout.org/articles/growing-class-divide-on-airplanes-represents-america-s/
Bibliography:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/16aCYZa48A8iM5DKP1F9bwtcpW4QUw4b40aeRJ9tTS3w/edit?usp=sharing