Already the dominant player in sneakers and sportswear, Nike now tries their hand at aircraft interior designs, having teamed up with Seattle design firm Teague on a new concept airplane cabin engineered specifically for sports-team travel.
Leveraging Teague’s expertise in high-end aviation design, and Nike’s sports-technology and -performance savvy, the aircraft cabin strips out the typical 100-400 passenger capacity, instead using that space to focus on the specific needs of a group as small as a 13-person basketball team. Specific zones are employed throughout the interior, each prioritizing a distinct need and designed around quantified athletic data and specifications, as analyzed by Nike. Those zones, via Teague –
Recovery: equalizing the negative effects of air travel on the mind and body, and bringing the training room to 40,000 feet through in-flight biometrics and analysis to accelerate injury diagnosis and treatment.
Circulation: fostering natural mobility and building in equipment that ensures optimal circulation and promotes healing.
Sleep: designing ideal sleeping conditions for individuals and sleep strategies for entire teams to maximize physical readiness.
Thinking: creating spaces for key mental activities, especially film study—enabling in-transit film review both before and after games.
At the moment, the Teague x Nike Sports Aircraft remains merely a concept, but, considering how this kind of travel could mitigate an opponent’s homecourt advantage, a shift toward this kind of travel technology seems altogether likely.
