There will be a new crop of exhibitors among the familiar names at Aircraft Interiors Expo this year. The exhibition is delighted to welcome around 60 companies which are either totally new to the event or are returning to the show after a number of years.

Newcomer Flight Display Systems will be introducing its Next Generation Blu-ray Player for aviation. According to the company this allows customers to watch Blu-ray and DVD movies just as though they are in their own home - from any region in the world. The company will also be displaying its iPod Adapter Cable which it believes will be of particular interest to European airline customers as it incorporates some fire safety designs that EASA requested.  The product allows customers to easily plug in their iPod to share video and music throughout the aircraft cabin.

Well known for its IFE products, first time exhibitor AVID Airline Products is now branching out into inflight catering items. The company will be showing a wide array of dish styles which can be produced in an airline’s corporate colours. The company will also be bringing along its two latest ear-line IFE headsets – models AE-6 and AE-7. These lightweight headsets are suitable for both short and long haul flights. Featuring comfortable ear hooks and a soft ear cushion, the company claims the sound quality is excellent and their elegant design means they are particularly suited for premium and business class users.

Cabinair Services, which is exhibiting for the first time, has recently introduced a new service to solve the problem of worn-out and tatty rubber arm caps on airline seats. The company has created a system to repair and refurbish tired-looking rubber arm caps, giving them a makeover by filling any holes with a flexible material and replicating the original surface texture, before adding a new paint finish. The system is water-based and conforms to CS25.853.

Also new to Hamburg this year is Baran Advanced Technologies, which will be showcasing its non-mechanical, fully electronic patented switch technology. The EVERSWITCH family of switches and panels provides a safe, comfortable and simple means for controlling any aircraft cabin feature – especially in areas that can get wet or are subject to high traffic usage. The fully washable EVERSWITCH switches and panels are made of aviation grade aluminum and are fully customisable to match any interior.

Ian Crawford, Group Exhibition Director at Reed Exhibitions. “This year we have first time exhibitors hailing from all around the world – including Europe, Israel and the United States. It’s obviously important for us to see new companies trying out the show – and it means there is a continual flow of fresh products and services for our visitors to see.”

In co-operation with Hamburg Messe 

Ends

Aircraft Interiors Expo is the largest dedicated aircraft interiors event in the world and will see companies exhibiting the full spectrum of technologies and products for airline constructors and operators.  www.aircraftinterorsexpo.com

For further information please contact Victoria Bailey or Carol Seath at CMS Strategic on Tel: +44 (0)20 8748 9797 or email info@cmsstrategic.com

About the organiser:
Reed Exhibitions is the world’s leading events organiser, with over 440 events in 36 countries. In 2009 Reed brought together over six million active event participants from around the world generating billions of dollars in business. Today Reed events are held throughout the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific, and organised by 35 fully staffed offices.

Reed organises a wide range of events, including trade and consumer exhibitions, conferences and meetings. Its portfolio of over 440 events serves 44 industry sectors, including: aerospace & aviation, automobiles, beauty & cosmetics, broadcasting, building & construction, electronics, energy, oil & gas, engineering & manufacturing, food service & hospitality, gifts, healthcare, interior design, IT & telecoms, jewellery, life science & pharmaceuticals, machinery, marketing, business services & training, medical education, printing & graphics, security & safety, sports & recreation, and travel.

Working closely with professional bodies, trade associations and government departments Reed ensures that each and every event is targeted and relevant to industry needs. As a result, many Reed events are market leaders in their field.

Reed Exhibitions is part of Reed Elsevier Group plc, a FTSE-100 company and world-leading publisher and information provider. In 2008, Reed Elsevier made an adjusted profit before taxation of £1,205 million on turnover of £5,334 million.

About the location: “Hamburg – The place for aviation”
Hamburg is one of the world’s most important locations for the civil aviation industry. Three key players, Airbus Deutschland, Lufthansa Technik and Hamburg Airport, along with more than 300 small and medium-sized enterprises, employing over 36,000 people between them, as well as a variety of scientific and technological institutions, all contribute their know-how and expertise. The Hamburg Metropolitan Region is widely considered to be an international centre of expertise in aircraft cabins and cabin systems. The city is also home to the annual Crystal Cabin Award, the first and, to date, only prize for innovation in the field of aircraft cabins. Aircraft Interiors Expo, which is organised in co-operation with the Hamburg Messe und Congress (HMC), is being held for the ninth consecutive year at Hamburg’s premier events venue.

Emerging more confidently from the global recession than other regions, the Asian aviation market is forging ahead and appears to have coped better than expected with the recent economic down turn. Could this herald a trend for airlines operating in the Asian arena to be at the forefront of the latest look in interiors as operators gear up to meet the growing demand? Seen for many years by some experts, as the great hope for the civil aircraft and aerospace industry it does seem that the Asian aviation market is starting to fulfil these predictions. Statistics at the start of 2010 show Asian aviation’s freight and passenger growth to be looking quite healthy.

A proposed explanation offered by Murdo Morrison, Editor of Flight International, suggests that the reason why Asian airlines are flying so high, while the rest of the world tentatively waits for the clouds to part, is because they did not feel the impact of the recession as strongly as others in the first place. Indeed, it seems that starting with a significantly smaller base has allowed Asia, “more room to expand than the mature industries that we find in Europe and the United States,” said Morrison*.

This all makes good reading for the aircraft interiors sector, however any future success is crucially contingent upon the immediate efforts put in place to battle the economic downturn. Facing the current climate, many airlines have focused on introducing cost-reducing measures, such as sacrificing first class seating to accommodate for an expansion in the economy cabin area. Air Austral for example has been the first airline to order A380s in its all-economy seating version; the flag carrier of the island, Reunion, in the southern Indian Ocean has ordered two such aircraft for flights between Paris and the island. The industry is waiting expectantly to see what such an interior will look like in reality.

It remains to be seen however, whether low cost but longer haul usage will continue to fuel the market for years to come, or whether the business class sector will enjoy a resurgence. Of course it is possible that reconfiguring the seating and reducing the amount of more expensive tickets could prove counter-productive in the long term. Will passengers who have downgraded to more affordable premium economy options now be permanently reluctant to upgrade back to business class or, with confidence starting to return to the market, will business travellers start to return in greater numbers? Some airlines have certainly indicated a slight increase in demand again for business class.

For the Asian aviation market nevertheless, the future seems more certain and figures provided by the International Air Transport association (IATA), certainly seem to support this. Commenting on the statistics, Director General of the IATA, Giovanni Bisignani, found that in 2009 with 647 million recorded passengers “intra-Asia-Pacific travel…eclipsed the number of travellers in North America” making it the world’s largest aviation market.  And, as home to two of the world’s top five most profitable airlines, with an extra 217 million passengers expected by 2013, for Asian aviation the sky really is the limit.

“All the major Asian airlines ensure that Aircraft Interiors Expo is on their exhibition calendar each year,” said Ian Crawford, Group Exhibition Director at Reed Exhibitions. “As with all our airline visitors they attend because they recognise our Hamburg event as the prime opportunity to get the low down on the latest and most innovative products and technologies that can really make a difference to their fleet’s interiors and passenger experience.”

Ends

*To hear more from Murdo Morrison about what lies ahead for the global aviation and interiors market in 2010 and beyond, please click on http://www.aircraftinteriorsexpo.com/murdo

Aircraft Interiors Expo is the largest dedicated aircraft interiors event in the world and will see companies exhibiting the full spectrum of technologies and products for airline constructors and operators.  www.aircraftinteriorsexpo.com

For further information please contact Victoria Bailey or Carol Seath at CMS Strategic on Tel: +44 (0)20 8748 9797 or email info@cmsstrategic.com

About the organiser:
Reed Exhibitions is the world’s leading events organiser, with over 440 events in 36 countries. In 2009 Reed brought together over six million active event participants from around the world generating billions of dollars in business. Today Reed events are held throughout the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific, and organised by 35 fully staffed offices.

Reed organises a wide range of events, including trade and consumer exhibitions, conferences and meetings. Its portfolio of over 440 events serves 44 industry sectors, including: aerospace & aviation, automobiles, beauty & cosmetics, broadcasting, building & construction, electronics, energy, oil & gas, engineering & manufacturing, food service & hospitality, gifts, healthcare, interior design, IT & telecoms, jewellery, life science & pharmaceuticals, machinery, marketing, business services & training, medical education, printing & graphics, security & safety, sports & recreation, and travel.

Working closely with professional bodies, trade associations and government departments Reed ensures that each and every event is targeted and relevant to industry needs. As a result, many Reed events are market leaders in their field.

Reed Exhibitions is part of Reed Elsevier Group plc, a FTSE-100 company and world-leading publisher and information provider. In 2008, Reed Elsevier made an adjusted profit before taxation of £1,205 million on turnover of £5,334 million.

About the location: “Hamburg – The place for aviation”
Hamburg is one of the world’s most important locations for the civil aviation industry. Three key players, Airbus Deutschland, Lufthansa Technik and Hamburg Airport, along with more than 300 small and medium-sized enterprises, employing over 36,000 people between them, as well as a variety of scientific and technological institutions, all contribute their know-how and expertise. The Hamburg Metropolitan Region is widely considered to be an international centre of expertise in aircraft cabins and cabin systems. The city is also home to the annual Crystal Cabin Award, the first and, to date, only prize for innovation in the field of aircraft cabins. Aircraft Interiors Expo, which is organised in co-operation with the Hamburg Messe und Congress (HMC), is being held for the ninth consecutive year at Hamburg’s premier events venue.