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Air travel goes hi-tech
15/09/2005 15:21 - (SA)
Hong Kong - From private cabins with designer fabrics and en suite bathrooms in first class to on-screen virtual air attendants taking orders in economy, the future of air travel is going hi-tech and high-style.
Modern technology has made it possible for airline interior designers to fit jets with more gadgets in the expensive seats and still add vital inches to leg room in the cheaper rows.
"You can sum up the general trend as more room and bigger screens," says Jerry McGill, a sales director at Aircraft Services Systems (ACS), a New York-based supplier of high-end in flight entertainment equipment, one of scores of firms gathered at an airline interiors expo in Hong Kong.
At the top-end, designers believe the time is almost near when fliers will be able to check into their own cabins at the front of the plane in the same way they check into a hotel room.
"We are rapidly moving towards the time when we have individual cabins in first class," says Catharina Lubke, of German seat design company Recaro, which supplies seating to most of Europe's major airlines.
"Passengers will have control of their own environment, they can lock a door and treat it like their own bedroom - they could even have their own bathrooms," Lubke adds.
In the meantime, designers have managed to liberate space by all manner of design innovations.
Servers in the sky
From tinkering with seat arrangements to use of newer light-weight materials to completely revamping chair designs, manufacturers have managed to add inches to the passenger's personal space.
French company Sicma Aero has created a range of self-contained living units, the SkyLounge, that allow business-class passengers to stretch out horizontally, surrounded by utility space in which can be installed private fridges or business equipment such as faxes or printers.
Britain's Thompson solutions has also created a seating unit that reclines to a fully horizontal position and includes a workbench hatch.
And European flyers are already being treated to soothing massages from a new seat developed by Recaro.
The business-class seats, which also fold out flat, boast cushions constructed from air-filled cells that can be inflated and deflated to suit body shape or to rhythmically kneed head, neck or back.
In-flight entertainment is also set to move in leaps and bounds, with connectivity to the internet the main area of research.
"The aim is to recreate in the sky what you can do on the ground," says David Tan, marketing director with Thales, which specialises in aircraft electronics.
Wireless technology means more information can be channelled through the planes, which will increasingly become servers in the sky, with broadband internet and telephone links via satellite.
- AFP
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