Beyond Blue: a Novel In-flight Dinner Ritual

Beyond Blue is a food tray design for serving meals in intercontinental flights. Whereas conventional food trays are flat and cover most of the passenger’s tabletop, Beyond Blue is a foldable box that, when opened, changes into a stable tray of similar size as the conventional models (Figure 1, right). When closed, the box covers less than a third of the tray table (Figure 1, left). Beyond Blue’s main added value is that it enables passengers to create a personalized meal ritual with a self-controlled beginning (opening the box) and ending (reclosing the box). Figure 2 visualizes the Beyond Blue usage scenario. When the meal is served, the passenger can either open the box immediately or decide to wait for some time, for example to finalize other activities (e.g. finishing a book page or having a bathroom visit). The passenger has the ability to end their meal at any point in time with the simple action of closing the box. Once closed, the empty food containers are inside the box and out of sight, creating a tidy appearance, and taking up only little space of the tray table. Moreover, the closed box is a subtle sign to the cabin crew that the passenger has finished his or her meal.