0 min left

This Is Why Airplane Seats Are Blue

Airlines have a long history of changing colors in the cabin to try and make things more friendly for flyers—like delightfully 80s-style patterned fabric on the bulkhead walls, specially colored lights to ease jetlag, and more. But the one color that never seems to change? The blue airplane seats.

A lot of work goes into designing airplanes. It’s like an ever-changing hotel room, with bathroom sizes fluctuating, bins getting rearranged, legroom slowly but surely disappearing. But one thing that always seems to stay the same (no matter how much an airplane changes) is the seat color—a cool, calculated blue.

Turns out there’s some surprising science behind the particular shade of blue airline seats seen in almost every major carrier’s fleet.

First off, the color is calming and sends across a feeling of relaxation.

“The idea is to give airplanes a more residential feeling, with relaxing colors and restful designs,” Shelly Zundell, a senior manager with Teague, an industrial design firm, said in a Boeing press release.

Physiologically, it also helps to make you feel cooler because blue is typically associated with ice and water. That means you don’t feel as stuffy or warm when you board a plane.

“Colors also can influence a person’s perception of humidity, temperature and aroma,” Virginia Tripp, another Teague designer, said in the release.

On top of that, it’s a professional color, hides stains well, and everyone pretty much seems to like blue—or at least there haven’t been many registered complaints about the color of an airplane’s seats.

1 Comments
K
KayVeeBee February 1, 2020

I can’t remember ever having been on a plane with blue seats. I don’t get it. On my recent flights (LK, LX and SN ) none of the planes had blue seats.