Best Seats in the House

A masterpiece of innovation, Bombardier’s award-winning Nuage seating collection recreates the comfort of luxury home seating at 40,000 feet.

By Michael Stephen Johnson

We spend an inordinate amount of time sitting. Some will argue that it’s an unnatural posture for the human body—but even the most outspoken critics of our increasingly deskbound ways will pull up a chair to work, eat and unwind. Unnatural or not, sitting is inevitable. So, rather than avoid it, we improve it. Own it. Design entire experiences around it. Such has been our fixation for centuries: For as long as we’ve been sitting, we’ve been trying to perfect the thing we’re sitting on.

The key to a great seat is simple enough: It can and should be rewarding. But with the right blend of cutting-edge design, luxury materials, and an intimate understanding of user experience, a seat can be more than just a reward. It can be not only comfortable but also inviting. It can be smart, stylish, even iconic.

Or, in the case of Bombardier’s award-winning Nuage seating collection, it can be all of the above.

Each seat meticulously designed for specific passenger needs, this patented collection represents the first meaningful change in the operation and design of business aircraft seats in more than 30 years. Available exclusively aboard Global aircraft and the Challenger 3500 jet, the Nuage family completely optimizes passenger comfort for even the longest of hauls, setting a new benchmark for seating innovation, craftsmanship and ergonomics.

Customer First

Like all Bombardier projects, the Nuage seating collection starts and ends with the customer experience. “When somebody buys one of our aircraft, they expect perfection,” says Ève Laurier, Vice President, Communications, Marketing and Public A airs. To achieve perfection, the design team’s first step was a deep dive into the cabin experience. When an aircraft o ers a range of up to 16 hours, it comes as no surprise that passengers spend most of their time seated. So, naturally, the team set out to perfect the seating.

They studied how passengers use cabin seating to work, rest and dine; they even considered specific body positions to better accommodate the way we slouch, lean and interact with fellow passengers, crew and the cabin space around us.

From there, the team designed 1:1 scale mock-ups to test assumptions against multiple user experience trials. Everything came under scrutiny, from seat architecture to materials to movement; everything you experience across the Nuage seating collection is the result of real users providing real feedback. “Getting the fundamentals right—correct seat ergonomics, adhering to anthropometric standards—was key to comfort,” says Adrian Goring, Senior Industrial Designer at Bombardier. Goring is the design lead for seating and cabin styling for the new Challenger 3500 jet, the first non-Global aircraft to include the Nuage seat as part of its standard configuration. “We essentially took the best features of a luxury armchair and an executive o ce chair and combined them into one magnificent seat that resonates with the rest of the cabin.”

It’s not just magnificent, it’s personal. Each Nuage seat is carefully crafted by expert designers, who work closely with customers to select from a seemingly endless palette of custom leathers and stitching— ensuring a truly bespoke look.

It’s also designed with sustainability in mind. Customers can choose from a range of sustainable materials for their Nuage seats, such as upcycled wool. All main materials—leather, fabric, aluminum—can be upcycled at the end of the aircraft’s life, and the seat configuration is specifically engineered to maximize recoverability rate.

Comfort and Control

Everything about the Nuage seat is unprecedented as it has already gone down in history as the the first new seat architecture in business aviation in three decades. With a completely re-engineered inner structure and architecture that fundamentally transforms both movement and support, no aircraft seat comes close to being this thoughtful, this seamless, this ergonomically perfect. The design alone is avant-garde: sculpted as one piece rather than multiple assembled “boxes” (like conventional aircraft seating); organic curves and subtle split lines; an overall blended shape that nestles and supports the body.

But it’s really when you interact with the Nuage seat that you realize how much the game has changed. It starts with the floating base, a seamlessly integrated track and swivel system that enables smooth, silent and— most importantly—versatile seat positioning. What’s more, the swivel now sits directly below the seat for more intuitive control and movement.

Then comes the deep recline. The straight recline on a conventional aircraft seat often creates the subtle yet persistent feeling that you’re sliding down the seat, putting undue strain on your legs and lower back.

with a supple tilting headrest that can adjust for optimal neck support, and you have yourself the pinnacle of cradling comfort. Bombardier’s designers made sure taller occupants are seated comfortably as well: they can extend the leg rest to complete the zero-gravity experience, and pull the seat pan cushion forward for more support behind their knees.

All in the Family

There’s a whole collection of distinct Nuage seats to experience. For passengers aboard Global 7500 aircraft, there’s also the Nuage divan, an actual in-flight sofa featuring the same brilliant deep recline features and ergonomic approach as the singular Nuage seat. And finally, the latest addition to the family, the Nuage cube, the most versatile of the bunch. Available exclusively with the Executive cabin o ering for the Global 7500 and Global 8000 aircraft, this multifunction cubic piece can be used anywhere in the cabin, as a seat, a leg rest or even a small table.

But perhaps the most recognized of the collection—alongside the titular Nuage seat of course—is the sleek and sophisticated Nuage chaise. This four-in-one design is as stylish as it is comfortable, drawing inspiration from the chaise longue that was first popularized in