Making its debut this year, British based FlightWeight will be launching SmartCart, a revolutionary food and duty free cart with an innovative ability to monitor and manage everything from access and location to internal temperature.
The pressure to reduce weight has seen many airlines replace conventional carts in favour of lightweight alternatives. "Conventional airline carts are heavy, easy to breach and offer no reliable method of recording entry or attack," said Malcolm Mathieson, Director at FlightWeight. "They also have an expensive habit of getting lost, but SmartCart can help save huge sums each year in wasted fuel, lost stock and replacement units."
SmartCart weighs up to 5kg less than conventional carts and is simple for authorised personnel to operate via unique proximity cards. A robust locking system removes the need for awkward padlocks and generates a tamper proof audit trail which records access attempts. Permissions can be managed remotely and updated globally across the fleet, and all cart data can be downloaded in seconds, thereby offering airlines significant cost-saving improvements in security, maintenance, traceability and ease-of-use.
"There is no doubt that Aircraft Interiors Expo is the world's largest exhibition in its category," added Mathieson. "A key factor in our decision to participate was that over 800 airline attendees visited the 2013 edition covering a wide range of job responsibilities, so the exhibition is an ideal platform to launch SmartCart given the impressive networking potential."
Another new exhibitor highlighting an innovative concept is Canadian based Belt-Tech Products, an international webbing manufacturer in the automotive, aviation and industrial markets, which will highlight its smart seat belt system based on Real-Time Information (RTI).
Each seat in the RTI system contains a pressure sensitive detector and via the belt's conductive yarn, a small battery activates a signal relayed to a centralised display to confirm whether the belt is buckled or unbuckled. In addition to increasing safety, the RTI system can be activated as required and provides onboard crew with a rapid overview of aircraft seat belts.
The display can be adapted to each customer's needs and relevant information can be transferred onto an existing screen or onto another platform depending on customer requirements. In addition to lightening onboard crew workload, the company also believes that the smart belt system will benefit sleeping passengers as crew can simply verify the RTI seat belt status rather than disturbing them to physically check.
After previously attending Aircraft Interiors Expo as visitors, Skyline-IFE from the UK will be making their inaugural appearance on the show floor focussing on two IFE products - a combined safety media production facility and live text news service. Traditional approaches to safety media have involved separate video and card production tasks. Skyline can now create safety cards and videos from the same 3D assets, thereby allowing the completion of video and card in a single project without requiring Aircraft On Ground for live shoots.
"As a visitor to the show, I did notice that there wasn't a company specialising in the production of safety media and so, seeing a gap in the market, decided to fill it this year.
Skyline is also looking to the future of the industry and will be demonstrating its turnkey live news service specifically tailored to the new adaptive bit rate streaming IFE systems. I believe the development of streaming media solutions is a significant evolutionary step in the IFE industry," said Richard Barsby, Managing Director of Skyline.
In response to this technology revolution, Skyline has partnered with major global news providers to offer a real-time news service for IFE portals with news feeds tailored to the cultural sensitivity of travelling passengers worldwide.
In addition to the production of safety media, Skyline provides a turnkey content management solution to a select number of airlines, including a national flag carrier.
Interact, from the USA, will also make its entrance this year. Interact is dedicated to provide creative programming solutions and unique custom production coupled with technical support in the field of IFE. The company is widely known for its creativity and delivers bespoke solutions for airlines' individual requirements.
"In recent years, we have closely watched the evolution of Aircraft interiors Expo to promote all areas of the cabin experience, including IFE, which is our speciality, and as such believe it is important for Interact to be represented at the exhibition. As one of the world's leading Content Service Providers (CSP), it is essential for us to increase our market reach, and also tap into new markets, which we are confident will happen by exhibiting in Hamburg," said Stephanie Cooper, Marketing and Business Development Director of Interact.
As each airline is different with its own unique brand attributes, Interact offers IFE benefits that allow its clients to stand out as leaders and not followers with the IFE arena. Unlike many of its competitors, Interact is not a mass management company and restricts the number of airline clients it services at any one time; as a result, this allows it to focus on its central priority of delivering excellent customer service.
Katie Murphy, Event Director, said: "The continuing strength of the Aircraft Interiors Expo brand in the global business community has been confirmed by the impressive number of new exhibiting companies this year. With the world's largest display of aircraft interiors products and services, together with a 12 percentage increase in visitors last year, it's clear that new exhibitors see this event as the ideal showcase to do business and network on an international stage."
