Priestman Goode bags Brazilian airline brief

Priestman Goode is redesigning interiors and passenger experience for the Brazilian airline Tam.

Tam has been Brazil’s flag-carrying airline for the past four years, and claims to be the busiest airline operating out of the southern hemisphere. ‘It aspires to be one of the top five airlines in the world,’ says Priestman Goode director Luke Hawes.

Priestman Goode was appointed to the project last month after presenting credentials and initial concepts to the client last April, says Hawes. The consultancy was up against five or six ‘mainly London-based’ competitors, he adds.

Priestman Goode has now been tasked with updating the entire passenger experience for the airline, looking at the redesign of seats in all classes, as well as galleys, stowages, lavatories, cabin architecture, staff uniforms and in-flight service provision, such as meals. The new design will be applied to existing Tam aircraft and those coming into service.

The airline is planning to bring ‘an enormous amount’ of aircraft into service, says Hawes, who adds that new Airbus A350s and Boeing 777s with Priestman Goode’s designs will take to the skies in summer 2012.

He adds that they will also be retrofitted to the existing fleet, which includes Airbus A330s and older Boeing 777s.

Hawes says, ‘Our experience of flying with Tam is that its service is exceptional. But the airline’s brand presentation currently just doesn’t match that. The designs we will roll out across its entire fleet will present [the airline] as an important international carrier and give it the tools it needs to compete with the world’s other major international carriers.’

He adds that the new designs will be ‘based on Brazilian culture, taking it to a contemporary level – the main thrust will be to present a “home from home”. We want the interiors to be familiar, but aspirational’.