NIKE and Design Firm Teague Conceptualize Aircraft Interior for Professional Athletes

Teague & NIKE collaborate to create custom aircraft

Seattle-based Teague, global design consultancy for aviation, and NIKE have collaborated to create an “Athlete’s Plane”, an out of this world pre-and post-game training and treatment facility which could revolutionize the way professional sports teams travel around the world.

Individual capsules for privacy, and to get a good night's sleep.

In a unique collaboration with NIKE, Teague has developed an innovative airplane cabin concept to enhance player’s physical, physiological and cognitive abilities which they claim will “preserve peak performance”. The aircraft interior is specifically designed to reduce the negative impacts of teams travelling around the globe during matches, and be an ideal place for injured or tired players to begin recovery during the games.

Interior divided into zones to enable optimal environment facilities

In order to better comprehend the needs of players, Teague interviewed “physicians, coaches, operations staff and sleep specialists working with both collegiate and professional teams”. The aircraft training and treatment facility is equipped with lie-flat seating, smart apparel such as compression sleeves for sore muscles, accessories, cabins-capsules to separate noise, footwear, and an area designed to enable biometric analysis and testing.

Mobile Center to improve blood flow around the body.

The facilities are intended to help optimize each player’s performance for coming events.

Teague's creative director Philipp Steiner said, ‘When professional athletes travel across multiple time zones their team is statistically more likely to lose - the Athlete's Plane essentially levels the playing field'.

Comfortable seating areas for players to relax

Teague focused on four areas of performance that are generally not tended by ordinary charters: recovery, circulation, sleep and thinking. The biometric testing and analysis room is specifically designed to equalize negative impacts of air travel on the mind and body. This includes ensuring optimal circulation in order to boost healing, as well as providing ideal sleeping conditions and recreational area for mental activities like film, studying to enable “in-transit film review both before and after games”. Professional teams will thus be able to perform better and recover from past games, thanks to in-flight monitoring, data analyzing and treatment practices. The interior of the 13-seat plane provides additional facilities for athletes, coaches and support staff by creating specific zones that pay specific attention to foot traffic, climate control, privacy, noise and light disturbances.

The airplane will help players' recovery, circulation, sleep and thinking

Image Courtesy of Teague