Podcast: Window Seat At Aircraft Interiors Expo

At Aircraft Interiors Expo this week in Hamburg, Aviation Week Network editors discuss the new products that have caught their attention, and share their thoughts about the major trends in they see in cabin design and manufacturing.

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Rush Transcript:

Thierry Dubois:

Hello everyone, and thank you for joining us for Window Seat, our Aviation Week Air Transport podcast. I'm Thierry Dubois, European Technology Editor for the Aviation Week Network, and I'm here at Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg with Linda Blachly, senior associate editor for Air Transport World.

Linda Blachly:

Hello.

Thierry Dubois:

Alan Dron. Alan, you are our Europe & Middle East correspondent for Transport World.

Alan Dron:

Yes. Good afternoon. Hi.

Thierry Dubois:

To start with Alan. May I ask you for a general impression from the show?

Alan Dron:

Well, having been to a few of these, I have to say that the first post-pandemic show it seems a bit flat, to be quite honest. The footfall that you would normally expect at a show like AIX, I think, simply, isn't there. The stands are full, but I do wonder whether the footfall will be enough for companies to work out, whether it's actually been worth their while to be here.

Thierry Dubois:

Thanks, Alan. Linda, what's your impression?

Linda Blachly:

Well, this is my first AIX, and I am really thrilled to be here because I have been able to actually meet people in person that I have been interviewing virtually over the past two years.

Thierry Dubois:

Linda, what products have you seen on the stands?

Linda Blachly:

Oh, well, I've seen a lot of new cabin designs, and I've seen new IFE technologies. In-cabin redesigns, there's a lot of rethinking going on, radical rethinking, much like today's culture. Some of the biggest approaches involve flexibility and throwing out standard rule books. I've seen a futuristic lift aero design concept called paradigm, which gets rid of classes and dividers on an aircraft. The paradigm concept envisions of wide single-aisle fuselage with flexible seating to enable airlines to sell any row as a premium economy, flatbed product, a premium economy seat, or an economy seat throughout the aircraft. Another design that I have seen throws out standard rule books. It's a concept called Elevate, which is a floating furniture innovation that brings together a Teague design for a dedicated premium product for narrow bodies with NOTAMs and brace technology, which is an advanced composite aircraft component that attaches cabin furniture to the side walls. As opposed to relying on standard seat tracks. The furniture appears to be floating. This embrace technology really opens the doors for much more flexibility in the cabin.

Thierry Dubois:

Thank you, Linda. Alan, could you tell us about the materials you have spotted on the stands?

Alan Dron:

Well, there's certainly a lot of new materials out there, but many have drawbacks of one sort or another. There's one possible lightweight materials derived from cactus, of all things, but that's yet to be certificated. There were complaints that the introduction of some of these innovative materials is being stymied by bureaucratic and rather old-fashioned certification procedures. There's also quite a few new magnesium alloys for small items, such as tray tables, which are the advantage of being very light but may struggle to pass flammability tests. There are been a lot of attempts to make leather substitutes from materials as odd as types of mushrooms, and they're facing major problems of scaling up to commercial levels. One company I was told about has apparently spent several years and a lot of money trying to grow a bio leather. It's still at the Petri dish level, and artificial leather is also, still tend to have challenges on the aesthetic or haptic levels. As one speaker said to me, there's a reason why leather is the third oldest product recorded in human history. It's remarkably versatile. It's remarkably hard-wearing.

Thierry Dubois:

Thank you, Alan. You were alluding to those flammability requirements, and I took to Lufthansa technique. They are developing new composite material for cabin applications, and it's entirely bio-sourced bio-based, and they are using bio-based reason. They're using Flex Fiber. One of the first things they had to do in development was to ensure this would pass the flammability and heat release tests. Apparently, they had to take a lot of time. It took them a lot of time to ensure that was going to be successful. There is another product that actually not product yet, but hopefully, innovation that caught my attention. It's about accessibility in aircraft cabins. Those disabled who are on a wheelchair today have real trouble embarking. They cannot use their own wheelchair on board. They have to leave it in the jetway, and then they have to use very standard wheelchair. It's called the aisle wheelchair, and then they are manually lifted into the seat in the cabin. Well, that's a long story show that it's very annoying and close to humiliation for them.

Thierry Dubois:

A consortium called air for all is finding a way quite a simple, quite a straightforward way to enable your personal wheelchair, your usual motorized wheelchair into the cabin. It just needs a slightly adapted, slightly modified seat in the front row. Just lifts its pan and armrest, and then the wheelchair can be attached to the airframe and indirectly to the airframe, actually to the cabin floor via a simple pin that doesn't intrude anyway in conventional operations. Alan, you heard about one of our colleagues. A reporter who regularly faces problems. He uses a wheelchair. Right?

Alan Dron:

He uses a wheelchair. The problem tends to be still the standards of helping wheelchair passengers at airports are, to put it politely, inconsistent. His a well-known British journalist called Frank Gardner, who worked for the BBC as a defense and security correspondent. He was disabled after being shot by Islamic terrorists in Saudi Arabia about 10 years ago. He uses a wheelchair. A couple of times a year, typically, he gets stranded on board in the aircraft at a British airport, usually Heathrow. He's adamant that after many years of complaining, wheelchair transport, generally, is still inconsistent at best. He's complained bitterly about this in many occasions, and the airports always say, yes, yes, we're going to do better. Not a lot seems to happen. It's all very well having new technology, but in some cases, it requires actually having personnel waiting at the disembarkation gate to help people get off.

Thierry Dubois:

Thank you, Alan. Linda, you briefly alluded to cabin customization. Is it a major trend?

Linda Blachly:

Yes, it really is a major trend, but a different side of that I've heard for the first time is from the lesser's point of view. A representative from Avalon said that while it was refreshing to hear and see these new ideas, what lessers are really looking for is standardization. Because when an aircraft is returned after 10 or 12 years, these custom aircraft they have to restore it back to a standard to a new airline.

Thierry Dubois:

This lesser was telling you also that they have to cope with a huge quantity of material when they transition an aircraft to another customer.

Linda Blachly:

Yes. He said that they have seen an obscene, he called it, amount of raw material being scrapped. He said, "For a lesser when they go through the transition in an aircraft, they take a huge amount of material out of the cabin and put it in the bin." He said, "Because these products have become obsolete and they're not able to use them again."

Thierry Dubois:

That is a reason why the theme of the circular economy is feminine theme here at AIX. I met a company specializing in thermoplastics. Thermoplastic plastic materials for cabins, such as they can be used for bin panels, baggage bin panels, for example, or business class seats. Their point is that the thermoplastics they are using is recyclable to a very high extent. They are using off cuts of their own production to make their foam. This can be up to 40% of off cuts. That's for the beginning of the life cycle, and then at the end of the life cycle, they found a way for that foam, that thermoplastic foam to be recycled. It's first crushed, then converted into pallets, and then it can be used as a raw material for reason injection parts, quite complex ones, actually, or 3D printing, 3D printed parts.

Thierry Dubois:

They are confident that there will be a high demand for that. Airbus wants to be part of a circular economy for its materials. Obviously, there is a long way to go before this is achieved. A company called Airbus is very confident in that thermoplastic recyclability. As part also of that circular economy theme, some players see an opportunity for aviation to be part of a broader cycle. They say aviation has to look for loops with other sectors. For example, what could be considered waste by aviation by aerospace manufacturing could be a raw material for another sector, such as Maritime or car industry, and vice versa. Aviation could use waste from other sectors as raw material. Alan, at every AIX show, we see the race between service providers for connectivity. There is a race that would higher and higher speeds, higher and higher bandwidth, but what about the perceived quality of wifi by passengers?

Alan Dron:

Alongside AIX is an event called the Passenger Experience Conference. One of the papers that was presented this year was a survey by OneWeb called the Connected Passenger Report. Very strikingly, seven out of 10 passengers who responded said they hadn't even attempted to use inflight connectivity on airliners, and almost half of the 30% who had used it said they found it a very frustrating experience. I mean, almost 60% of the passengers surveyed rated the current quality of IFC from very poor to, at best moderate. This wasn't a small survey. They managed to round up more than 4,000 respondents from the United States, UK, UAE, Singapore. It was a good sampling of current feeling on the matter. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the younger the passenger, the less likely they were to be satisfied with the quality of available onboard connectivity because they're so used to getting good connectivity at home.

Alan Dron:

There seems to be a suggestion that a lot of airline marketing departments really haven't managed expectations very well in this. They simply say, oh, we've got wifi on board, and people think great wifi. They think of what they've got at home, get on board and find that, well, actually, no, it's not just like what they've got at home. That's causing a lot of frustrations. Even more so, in fact, when there's a problem with the system. One speaker noted that if passengers discover that the wifi system isn't working, there is what he described as vicious anger among some travelers, particularly in the US and Europe, particularly from business class passengers.

Thierry Dubois:

Also, about connectivity but coming back to the theme of standardization. ABUS is offering an agnostic antenna if you wish. An agnostic terminal for airlines to install on the aircraft, and they may choose the service provider they want independently from the hardware. Usually, a company like Inmarsat or Viasat will sell you the service and associated hardware such as the antenna. With Airbus, they call the Airspace Link HBC plus. You may want to buy the aircraft antenna and then choose your service provider. Thus, for the antenna is provided by Safran and thus for the only selected service provider is Inmarsat, but Airbus is willing to add other service providers. For instance, I took two Intelsat this morning, and they are very much willing to go ahead with the idea. Linda, any more products that caught your attention.

Linda Blachly:

Yes. One in particular, Safran, has totally rewritten the book on audio in the cabin, as it introduced Euphony this week, which is a wireless system for its new business and first-class seats that they also unveiled this week called VUE and Unity. Imagine not being attached to headphones or earbuds while listening to your IFE. With the Euphony system, speakers are actually built into each side of your adjustable headrest to deliver an amazing high-quality individual sound system. Trust me, I tried it out, and no one else can hear what comes out of your speakers. It's truly an amazing technology for business and first-class.

Thierry Dubois:

Also, there is this product with a strange name, AirShield. What is it about?

Linda Blachly:

I'm very excited about AirShield. This is going to be, I think, a game-changer for aviation when it comes to future pandemics. AirShield, which came out of a partnership between Teague and Pexco Aerospace, during the height of the pandemic in 2020. It's a component that fits right over the existing overhead air vents and actually optimizes the effectiveness of those Gaspers by further clearing the cabin air by sending it more efficiently to the HEPA filters. That creates a protective barrier around each passenger. Pexco said it actually reduces the shared air particles by 76%. I think of all the technologies that have been proposed as a result of the pandemic. This is the one that makes the most sense because don't we all fear those airborne viruses now. AirShield is in the final stages of FAA certification. It will be ready for market later this year.

Thierry Dubois:

Thank you, Linda, for your insights. Thank you, Alan, as well. Thank you, to our listeners. I hope you'll join us again next week for another episode. Make sure you don't miss it by subscribing to the Window Seat podcast on April podcasts or wherever you listen. Until then, this is Thierry Dubois embarking from Window Seat.