Aerocat - lightweight plastic cart

26 April 2013

AeroCat – In-flight Catering Trolley There are so many good things to say about the AeroCat, but in order to keep this as brief as possible the following is intended to inform you about the thinking behind the AeroCat and explain the main benefits and advantages.

Full Size Atlas Cart Weight: 16.9 kg.

Height: 1030mm Length: 810mm

Half Size Atlas Cart Weight: 11.2 kg.

Height: 1030mm Length: 404mm

You are obviously familiar with the airline catering and duty free carts; those ugly containers, often scratched, dented and plastered with sticker “left-overs”. These are commonly

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Malton Inflight Ltd, Basepoint, Metcalf Way, Crawley, West Sussex, RH11 7XX. Tel. +44 1293 813973. info@maltoninflight.com www.maltoninflight.com

26 April 2013

aluminium metal carts, which are being used for transporting food, beverages and valuable in-flight duty free items to and on-board the aircraft.

These carts are very awkward to operate by the crew, because they are heavy and difficult to manoeuvre. They are a nightmare too for the passenger, because if you are sitting in the aisle seat and get bumped by such a heavy metal cart you will certainly know about it.

Such carts have been there in existence for decades; … it’s about time to innovate!

We came across AeroCat, a Dutch manufacturer of catering carts, with a mind set to innovate and drive to change the market of catering logistics. Their vision is passionate, outof-the-box and driven for success. Like many of today’s dynamic new innovators, AeroCat is a relatively new presence in the world of aviation, but nevertheless there are some very big multi-nationals supporting her (e.g. Solvay, worldwide leading multi-billion company in chemicals). They are ambitious; with a strong drive for high quality concepts and an ethos of doing things better, smarter – in tune with the core processes of the airline and also with environmental-care.

AeroCat has designed and created “The Plastic Catering Cart”, responding to market demand to become lighter. Their carts will save an average-sized airline millions of dollars on fuel. Changing from heavy-weight to light-weight is a quick win, a no-brainer, the sooner the better; this will save a lot of money; a conservative calculation has proven that each extra kilogram carried by an aircraft costs the airline around US$150/year extra in fuel.

There are lightweight metal carts on the market, especially the ones from the incumbent manufacturers of metal aluminium carts. They have reduced and reduced the gauge of the metal out of the existing carts and they become automatically lighter. However, there is a downside to this. The more metal taken out, the thinner and weaker the cart becomes. Now these ultra-lightweight metal carts are almost “Coca-Cola Can” thin; making them extremely vulnerable to damage and pilferage; some duty free carts can contain several thousand dollars-worth of luxury goods and are easy to prize open. Compare the durability with the AeroCat plastic cart, made of the same kind of revolutionary plastic composite material now being used in the latest Boeing and Airbus aircraft, and you will see that the latter is light but strong; much stronger and more durable than ANY metal lightweight cart.

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Malton Inflight Ltd, Basepoint, Metcalf Way, Crawley, West Sussex, RH11 7XX. Tel. +44 1293 813973. info@maltoninflight.com www.maltoninflight.com

26 April 2013

In fact, they will last 3x times longer than any lightweight metal cart. Think about what that means in terms of return on investment, as well as in more specific and logistical terms how the continuous “in-service” aspect of the AeroCat plastic carts will support the core operational processes of your aircraft fleet.

Consider too about the logistical cost when a metal catering cart becomes damaged, how this will hinder the operation of your fleet. The AeroCat cart will always remain in service doing her duty and will not spend any excessive idle time in the tool shop for repair, other than for routine cleaning and wheel/brake “normal wear and tear” maintenance.

AeroCat is made using the latest technology with high-durable plastics, used in modern aircraft construction, which are so strong that they need NO maintenance. It also has the best wheels and braking system available on the market. Of course, as with anything, items with moving parts such as brakes and wheels, will become worn but AeroCat is ready to make arrangements with an airline and local support company to deliver it’s highly durable plastic catering carts with a full lifetime 100% warranty (normal wear & tear excluded). So while the initial cost of the AeroCat cart might seem higher, when seen from a Total Cost of Ownership perspective, they are much cheaper than any other cart in the market. The full lifetime 100% warranty is linked to a lease construction, so you don’t need to invest any capital. Instead you simply rent the carts with NO worries and NO risk - leaving you to focus on what you do best.

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Malton Inflight Ltd, Basepoint, Metcalf Way, Crawley, West Sussex, RH11 7XX. Tel. +44 1293 813973. info@maltoninflight.com www.maltoninflight.com

26 April 2013

Beside all this, the durability and strong nature of the plastic cart, the cart has another 4 unique features, both in design as well as of the characteristics of the plastics used.

1. Plastic is a much better thermal insulator than metal. Using metal to keep food cool is like cooling with the refrigerator door wide open. Whereas plastic will keep your food at the right temperature for a much longer time. This will help your business in the future too, as is soon widely expected that the food standard authorities will be intensifying strict standards especially within the airline catering sector and much stricter regulations on food temperatures are anticipated. It is becoming well known that the current cooling method in metal carts is almost totally ineffective.

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Malton Inflight Ltd, Basepoint, Metcalf Way, Crawley, West Sussex, RH11 7XX. Tel. +44 1293 813973. info@maltoninflight.com www.maltoninflight.com

26 April 2013

2. The plastics used are 100% fully recyclable, Cradle-to-Cradle, thus creating an image for the airline expressing care for the environment. A great promotional item.

3. Plastic has a big advantage over metal, because you can use RFID-technology on plastic, but not on metal (the Faraday Cage phenomenon). With RFID, Radio Frequency Identification, you can track & trace your carts, see where they are, thus creating better control and the possibility of needing less inventory. Imagine as well when this technology in the not too distant future will allow for automatically reading the inside contents of each cart; doing away with all the old-fashion paperwork and doing it automatically. Every AeroCat plastic catering cart is RFIDenabled, has its own unique digital identification-code and is ready for to be tracked and traced, as well as other future developments in RFID-technology.

4. Last but not least, the AeroCat cart design is made with a patented closing mechanism of the door, which avoids any unauthorised access to the cart. The door has 14 self-closing locks (operated by one simple latch) and makes the cart fully theft-proof (you can’t get anything out of the cart), as well as the safe and secure nature of the cart to prevent any potential terrorist, or unauthorised access.

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Malton Inflight Ltd, Basepoint, Metcalf Way, Crawley, West Sussex, RH11 7XX. Tel. +44 1293 813973. info@maltoninflight.com www.maltoninflight.com

26 April 2013

Customer feedback

“We have become the first to use these polymer constructed airline trolleys, which are manufactured by AeroCat in the US. They are a breakthrough technology in terms of cart manufacture and deliver significant fuel savings because of their light weight. They are also completely recyclable and if they get damaged in anyway then all you need to do is remove the wheels and the lock before grinding it down to make another cart. This is known as ‘cradle to cradle’ manufacturing and the recyclability ties in with the more sustainable approach we’re looking to take.

Getting everyone on the right page enabled us to make a committed decision to proceed. We made sure our cabin crew were involved in the look, feel and usability of the design; whilst our fuel-saving committee were hugely excited about the potential of the trolley, as you would expect. There were a lengthy number of checks and balances that needed to be dealt with but having come through all these various barriers to production we were able to reach a point where we were given the green light. Having now implemented the first batch the ultimate aim is to fully deploy the trolley across the entire Aer Lingus network making it the only type of cart that we use.

The fact that it is a lease model retains our flexibility going forward. For example, for something like a spice galley, which Airbus are developing, we’ll need to have adaptable solutions and the lease model increases our options for different aircraft types. The carts also have RFID tags so track and traceability comes with the lease, which also includes all maintenance duties, so we know where the trolleys are at all times.”

Aidan Power, Aer Lingus - Director of Catering In-flight Services.

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Malton Inflight Ltd, Basepoint, Metcalf Way, Crawley, West Sussex, RH11 7XX. Tel. +44 1293 813973. info@maltoninflight.com www.maltoninflight.com