The Dutch national airline company KLM wanted to improve the economy-class breakfast served on intercontinental flights. Although economy-class meals are already not known to make people happy, their evaluations showed that the breakfast was particularly disliked. KLM had already attempted to improve the recipes and the design of the packaging, but this did not have much impact.

We captured people’s emotions on board before, during and after the breakfast was served. We followed up with interviews to find out which needs were behind the emotions, using our Deep user needs method. We used the insights to develop a radical new breakfast concept.

The two emotions that stood out in our measurement were boredom and disgust. Through the interviews, we discovered the source of these emotions. Passengers had two important needs left unfulfilled: the need for mental stimulation and the need for control. These needs had less to do with the meal itself, and more with the circumstance in which it was served. By the time passengers receive breakfast, they have already been strapped in their seat for about eight hours and have tried every form of entertainment. Passengers also have almost no control over their morning ritual – unable to move or to determine when to receive breakfast. All these unfulfilled needs spilled over into the evaluation of the breakfast. This inspired us to create a radically new breakfast concept that addresses these needs.

We did post-measurements and found that people were much happier. People experienced 75% more positive emotions, while the negative emotions had mostly vanished. The breakfast was so well liked that KLM used it as their standard breakfast for two years, much longer than the typical time span for an airplane meal.