airline passenger
volume 8, edition 1 | february – march 2018
Feeling the Network Effect When connectivity has no beginning or end
official publication of the airline passenger experience association
THE GROUND.
WE MAKE IT
FLY
No matter how busy the flight, your passengers will feel like they’re in a world of their own thanks to our beautifully designed Airspace cabins. HD in-flight entertainment throughout, quieter, and with soothing LED ambient lighting, Airspace delivers first class comfort for every passenger. And not only is it available across our newest widebody fleet, it’s also being rolled out across our single aisle A320 family too. Tranquility. We make it fly.
AD DIRECTORY
Advertisers’ Directory
volume 8, edition 1 february – march 2018
Airbus
digEcor
Inflight Peripherals
AirFi
Donica
Jaguar Distribution
Astronics Advanced Electronic Systems
Emphasis Video Entertainment
Kid Systeme
airbus.com See pages 4 and 5
airfi.aero See page 37
donica.com See page 62
astronics.com See pages 12 and 56
Axinom
skyfilms.com See page 95
BBC World News bbc.com See page 67
Black Swan
blackswan.com See page 15
Bluebox Aviation Systems blueboxaviation.com See page 28
Carlisle Interconnect Technologies carlisleit.com See four-page gatefold after page 34
Deutsche Telekom telekom.com See page 11
Eros Inflight Media erosnow.com See page 110
Euronews
euronews.com See page 47
Global Eagle
globaleagle.com See IFE sponsorship on pages 90–111 and page 19
ifpl.com See infographic and page 26
jaguardc.com See page 99
kid-systeme.com See page 112
Kontron
kontron.com See page 25
Long Prosper
longprosper.com See page 80
LSG Sky Chefs
lsgskychefs.com See pages 59 and 79
Panasonic Avionics
panasonic.aero See outside back cover
Paramount Pictures Global One Media
paramount.com See pages 2 and 3
globalonemedia.aero See pages 6 and 7
Pascall Electronics IMG Worldwide
pascall.co.uk See page 72
img.com See page 21
Penny Black Media
Deutsche Welle dw.de See page 107
experience
emphasis-video.net See page 107
Entertainment In Motion
axinom.com See page 33
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digecor.com See page 23
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Images in Motion iim.com.sg See page 109
pennyblackmedia.com See page 101
Pictureworks See page 104
Skycast Solutions
skycastsolutions.com See page 75
Skyline IFE
skyline-ife.com See page 103
Sony Pictures Releasing sonypicturesinflight.com See page 93
Spafax
spafax.com See pages 8 and 9
Warner Bros.
warnerbros.com See page 97
West Entertainment westent.com See page 115
W.L. Gore and Associates gore.com See page 89
Zodiac Aerospace imsco-us.com See page 39
IT’S NOT JUST A NETWORK FOR EUROPE IT’S A NETWORK FOR GROWTH The European Aviation Network, the world’s first integrated satellite and air to ground network, is tailor-made for Europe’s busy routes and hubs. Ideal for narrow body aircraft, cost-effective to install and run, EAN is scalable to meet Europe’s growing inflight connectivity demand. High-speed seamless Wi-Fi for flights over Europe gives your passengers a superior inflight experience. By delivering real time messaging and video streaming, it will turn short-haul passengers into long-term customers. Find out more at europeanaviationnetwork.com
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CONTENTS DIGITAL
Wi-Fi World
volume 8, edition 1 february – march 2018
Air travel is becoming an increasingly connected experience, and no plane, passenger or part will be left behind. The proliferation of data is influencing how we communicate, what we watch, what we eat and how we will travel in the future.
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Smart City, Smart Airport
PHOTOS: ZAHA HADID ARCHITECTS; FLYYOURVEDA; ZAL TECHCENTER; AIR NEW ZEALAND ILLUSTRATIONS: MARCELO CÁCERES
What if all the networks of an airport could be merged into one?
FEATURES
C-SUITE
53
63
Driving, learning, cleaning and healing are just some of the capabilities of these materials and machines.
Airlines are looking to serve nutrient-rich foods that aren’t hard to swallow.
Autonomous Me
40 Avi Golan
Serving You Well
Chief Digital Officer, Air New Zealand
70
Future Power Fossil fuels are falling out of fashion. Now what?
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CONTENTS DIGITAL
volume 8, edition 1 february – march 2018 STANDBYS 32 In the Hyperloop
10 Advertisers’ Directory
The concept of high-speed travel via slingshot propulsion has the aviation industry on its toes.
17 Presidents’ Letters 18 Board News 20 APEX in Action 22 Editor’s Letter 24 Featured Contributors 36 Connecting China’s Consumers
29 APEX Asks How can we futureproof our businesses in an era of constant technological change?
Open the floodgates to a lucrative ancillary revenue channel.
34 From the Source D2C companies are flying their products on board.
30 Slushing Around With Finnair
35 Crew Cuts
Finnair gives a tour of a startup event hosted in its hometown.
Emirates employees dabble in film after work hours.
76
81 Headlines 84 APEX News 38 Patented Leather
90 IFE Listings
Could lab-grown leather become a trend in the cabin?
114
Travelogue: Snack in the Box
88 IFSA News 113 #APEXPOTD
83
Throwback: Guess Where I’m Calling From?
Infographic: Track Wear
Q&As 50 Dodo Su
Product Manager, China Southern Airlines
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60 Weiwei He
68 Ben Fuller
Head of China Business, tangerine
Director of Marketing, Americas, FTS Technologies
PHOTOS: HYPERLOOP TRANSPORTATION TECHNOLOGIES; SLUSH; AMERICAN AIRLINES; GETTY IMAGES; CHINA SOUTHERN AIRLINES; TANGERINE; FTS TECHNOLOGIES ILLUSTRATIONS: JORGE DE LA PAZ; FRANCISCO OLEA; ALEXANDRE AFFONSO
16 CEO’s Letter
TURN CAPTIVE PASSENGERS INTO CAPTIVATED CUSTOMERS Data-driven passenger experience software solutions We believe data will drive the future of in-flight entertainment and connectivity platforms. Our data-driven, APEX Award winning solution helps airlines create a truly personalised customer experience; one that gives every passenger the choice, control and convenience they crave – whether in the air or on the ground.
www.blackswan.aero Copyright Š 2017 All rights reserved. The above content or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of Black Swan Data Limited.
CEO’S LETTER
Dear Members, We enter 2018 with an incredible plan to advance both APEX and IFSA on a global scale. Our combined mission is to propel airline passenger experience and in-flight service with every airline in the world.
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP WITH GLOBAL AIRLINES Over the past few months, I have been honored to meet with the heads of major airlines on behalf of both APEX and IFSA. APEX has been in contact with several airline heads this past month, including visits with Aeromexico SVP Marketing and E-Commerce Andres Castañeda, Etihad Airways VP Guest Experience and Service Delivery Linda Celestino, Royal Jordanian Head of In-Flight Services and Product Luay Qunash, Delta Air Lines COO Gil West and Qatar Airways CEO H.E. Akbar Al Baker. These meetings advance APEX’s thought leadership and work to better serve our industry.
IFSA AT SIAL MIDDLE EAST AND THE MERCURYS IN ABU DHABI IFSA took a tremendous step in judging and leading at SIAL Middle East and the 36th annual Mercury awards in Abu Dhabi. IFSA’s approach mirrored APEX’s global advancement in thought leadership. In my role as IFSA CEO, I unveiled our initiatives with the US FDA and European Union food labeling decision makers to better serve the airline passenger experience.
EXPO 2018 EARLY KEYNOTE ANNOUNCEMENTS: AEROMEXICO, AIR CANADA AND AER LINGUS CEOS
APEX EXPO, 24–27 September, in Boston, Massachusetts. EXPO will once again be co-located with International Flight Services Association (IFSA) Conference and Expo and Aircraft Interiors Expo (AIX) Americas. We look forward to seeing you at APEX TECH in Los Angeles on 30–31 January, IFSA Regional in San Francisco on 22 January, Hamburg Aviation on 8–9 February, APEX Asia in Shanghai on 13–14 March, AIX/WTCE Hamburg on 10–12 April and/or APEX MMM in Paris on 23–25 April. Best regards,
After a record-setting event in Long Beach this September for APEX and IFSA, I am proud to share that Aeromexico CEO Andrés Conesa, Air Canada CEO Calin Rovinescu and Aer Lingus CEO Stephen Kavanagh will join us as keynote speakers at
Joe Leader
APEX/IFSA Chief Executive Officer
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PRESIDENTS’ LETTERS
Dear APEX Members,
Dear IFSA Members,
As we kick off 2018, APEX invites you to attend one of our six events, across four countries, which will attract thousands of attendees!
2017 was a very successful year for IFSA. Not only did we have exceptional numbers in Long Beach, but we also saw great growth with membership, record-breaking scholarship donations and increased advocacy work by our Government Affairs and Education Committee. However, most notable is the growth of our international presence. This year, we elevated our long-standing relationship with APEX by solidifying our partnership with a tightly aligned, but fully independent agreement. In addition to growing with APEX, we also entered into an agreement with SIAL Middle East, and had the opportunity to represent IFSA at the event’s prestigious Mercury awards ceremony in Abu Dhabi. Building off this momentum and looking ahead, our key initiatives have always been to expand our reach both within the onboard industry and globally. This year, we are continuing to strengthen our working relationships with other industry associations, publications and groups, as well as build new ones. We’ve taken steps to expand the organization’s scope beyond food and beverage to integrate other elements of the customer experience. Additionally, we’ve continued to advocate for IFSA and the industry by maintaining an open dialogue with appropriate worldwide regulatory and legislative entities. On behalf of the IFSA Board of Directors, thank you for your continued support and dedication to the association as we prepare for an exciting year ahead. Should you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to myself or any member of the board.
APEX TECH: 30–31 JANUARY AND 19–20 JUNE, LOS ANGELES Take part in the forums that provide information, guidance, analysis and trend reporting on technology issues critical to the aviation industry. APEX ASIA: 13–14 MARCH, SHANGHAI APEX MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA: 4–5 NOVEMBER, DUBAI Featuring high-end regional educational programs with compelling content that covers local trends, strategies and new technologies. APEX MULTIMEDIA MARKET: 23–25 APRIL, PARIS The most expansive offering in a one-stop marketplace that encompasses airline content for global passengers with increasingly diverse tastes, needs and interests. APEX EXPO: 24–27 SEPTEMBER, BOSTON The largest and most anticipated industry event, with world-class keynote speakers, forward-thinking panels and an award ceremony that honors members for their work and dedication. EXPO will be co-located with IFSA Conference and Expo and AIX Americas. I look forward to seeing you all at these events in 2018! Best regards,
Best Regards,
Brian Richardson
APEX President American Airlines
Paul Platamone
IFSA President Harvey Alpert & Company/Oakfield Farms Solutions
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BOARD NEWS
From Your APEX Board
Brian Richardson President American Airlines
Juha Järvinen Vice-President Finnair
The APEX Board of Directors is committed to keeping you, the APEX members, informed about board initiatives and decisions. In addition to this dedicated space in every issue of APEX Experience, the board sends direct e-mails to keep members updated and hosts “Ask the Board” panels at events to receive feedback. APEX is an association for the members, which is why it’s equally important to hear from you, year-round.
2018 APEX STRATEGIC PLANNING MEETING Maura Chacko Secretary Spafax
Joan Filippini Treasurer
Paramount Pictures
The board’s next meeting will take place in Finland on 7–8 February. The discussion will focus on the strategic direction of the association.
MARKETING AND SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES
Kevin Bremer Chief Advisor
Andres Castañeda Aeromexico
Boeing (Past President)
Planning for the year ahead? Consider becoming a sponsor at an APEX event. APEX events draw company decision makers from every sector of the passenger experience industry and are an excellent way to get the right eyes on your brand. Contact Desiray Young, dyoung@apex.aero, for information on available marketing opportunities throughout the year.
REVIEWS AND APPROVALS The board approved the 2018 budget in June 2017. To ensure a budget that breaks even, there will be slight increases in event registration and in other areas, including APEX EXPO booth rates.
CONGRATS! Michael Childers
Jon Norris
Lufthansa Systems
Panasonic Avionics
Babar Rahman
Anton Vidgen
Qatar Airways
Air Canada
Ingo Wuggetzer Airbus
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APEX is proud to announce that Katie Goshgarian has been promoted to executive director, and Russ Lemieux to chief operations officer. If you have suggestions for APEX’s leadership on how your membership can work better for your company, e-mail us at info@apex.aero.
Travel experience is our world
Ultra-fast internet service Premium content with global reach Discover more at globaleagle.com
Live & on-demand entertainment
SOCIAL
APEX in Action All around the world, APEX members celebrated success, excellence and the holidays, of course!
See more social photos on Facebook > FACEBOOK.COM/ APEX.AERO
1. Group selfie! Pakistan International Airlines commemorates staff at its 2017 Cabin Crew Excellence Awards. 2. Did you know Viasat is one of Bicycling magazine’s top bike-friendly workplaces in the United States?
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3. It’s all smiles and Christmas sweaters for the tight-knit team at Inflight Dublin. 4. Santa doesn’t always travel by sleigh. Sometimes it’s by plane with the Finnair flight crew. 5. Mediacorp is named Terrestrial Broadcaster of the Year (for the 14th time!) at the Asian Television Awards. 3
6. Copa Airlines celebrates its 20th year of helping children across Latin America fulfill their dreams of flying.
4
7. Joe Leader meets with His Excellency Akbar Al Baker in Doha to discuss the industry, peace and prosperity. 8. In anticipation of the New Year, Japan Airlines sends handwritten notes to thank special passengers. 9. Thales scouts young talent at the Forum Ouest Avenir et Entreprises in Brest, France. 5
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10. A photo booth moment from the Lufthansa Systems Christmas party.
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E-mail your photos to 8
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> EDITOR@APEX.AERO
EDITOR’S LETTER
Future-Proof Fantasies
Contact APEX Media at
EDITOR@APEX.AERO
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might have sounded absurd when it was announced, but as prototypes prove its speed and efficiency, it is emerging as a possible competitor to short-haul flights, and the aviation industry is taking note. Finally, in light of APEX Asia in Shanghai, 13–14 March, we’ve dedicated our Q&A profiles to APEX members who have fascinating insights to share about working with and within the China and Asia-Pacific markets. Read our interviews with Dodo Su of China Southern Airlines on page 50, Weiwei He of tangerine on page 60 and Ben Fuller of FTS Technologies on page 68. We also turn to APEX members for their thoughts in “APEX Asks,” a new section in the magazine, on page 29, where we pose the question: “How can we future-proof our businesses in an era of constant technological change?” In this industry, it’s the type of question we need to ask ourselves time and time again.
Maryann Simson
Director, APEX Media
Caroline Ku
Managing Editor, APEX Media ILLUSTRATION: MALIK THOMAS
In business, we often have to make various predictions and ask questions about the future: How will our company perform next quarter? Which travel or entertainment trends will emerge victorious this year? What hardware should we install on our planes? The answers to these questions are never certain, but they can be predicted with some confidence. Less often are we challenged to think ahead to where we see our businesses in five, 10 or even 15 years. These projections are far more difficult to conjure because they require a good dose of imagination and a broader view of the world, its people and emerging technologies. They can also be frightening for businesses that are resistant to change or lack organizational agility. In this issue of APEX Experience, we’ve taken an “aerial view” of how passenger journeys could change and evolve in both the near and not-sonear futures. We cover everything from smart-city-like airport models that harness the power of big data, in “Smart City, Smart Airport” on page 76, to self-driving, self-learning, self-cleaning and self-healing technologies in the multipart feature, “Autonomous Me,” on page 53. In “Future Power,” on page 70, Marisa Garcia takes a look at alternative natural sources and the potential of aircraft propulsion without fossil fuel. Even Elon Musk makes an appearance, in “In the Hyperloop” on page 32. His idea for slingshot-propulsion travel
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MASTHEAD
Featured Contributors
volume 8, edition 1 february – march 2018
APEX Experience Magazine 575 Anton Blvd, Ste 1020 Costa Mesa, CA 92626 +1 714 363 4900
ALEXANDRE AFFONSO is a Brazilian
See Alexandre’s work in the infographic after page 82
illustrator living in Portugal, who draws with his right hand and writes with his left. When it comes to wearable gadgets, he is inseparable from his stylus finger. If any machine could improve air travel for him it would have to be a hibernation chamber.
HARVEY ALPERT is the president of
Read about Harvey’s story on page 76
Read Seth’s work on page 36
Harvey Alpert & Co., a sales and marketing company that bridges the gap between the unique requirements of airline food and beverage programs and the manufacturers who can supply these products. His favorite in-flight snack is cheese (all kinds) and seedless red and green grapes.
COVER BY MALIK THOMAS
EDITORIAL
PRODUCTION
Director
Director of Project Delivery Alain Briard
Maryann Simson maryann.simson@apexmedia.aero Managing Editor Caroline Ku caroline.ku@apexmedia.aero Deputy Editor Valerie Silva valerie.silva@apexmedia.aero Digital Editor Kristina Velan kristina.velan@apexmedia.aero
SETH MILLER is a dork obsessed with everything air travel. His favorite device is the Casio calculator watch he had as a kid. “It delivered so much functionality in a small package.” Although the future holds faster, more efficient modes of travel, he says he is happy to travel in cars, trains and planes. “Travel is not always luxurious and rarely without some unexpected incident along the way, but that’s part of the joy for me!”
MALIK THOMAS is a minimalist from
See Malik’s work on the cover
Publisher Al St. Germain al.stgermain@spafax.com
Liverpool, UK, with a passion for detailed illustration and clean line work. His favorite electronic device is his iPad Pro. “As a designer, it’s great to be able to sketch my ideas and build them up as a vector file.” If he could sit next to anyone on a flight, it would be Dave Chappelle. “He would have loads of funny stories!”
News Editor Ari Magnusson Research Assistant Ella Ponomarov Contributors Harvey Alpert, Marisa Garcia, Jasmin Legatos, Seth Miller, Katie Sehl, Howard Slutsken, Stephanie Taylor, Jordan Yerman
ART Art Director Nicolás Venturelli nicolas.venturelli@apexmedia.aero Graphic Designer Angélica Geisse Contributors Alexandre Affonso, Marcelo Cáceres, Jorge De la Paz, Óscar Matamora, Francisco Olea, Malik Thomas
FSC-FPO
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Production Manager Felipe Batista Nunes Copy Editor Deanna Dority Fact Checkers Tara Dupuis Leah Jane Esau Proofreaders Katie Moore Robert Ronald
ADVERTISING Sales Director Steve O’Connor steve.oconnor@apexmedia.aero +44 207 906 2077 Ad Production Manager Mary Shaw mary.shaw@spafax.com Ad Production Coordinator Joanna Forbes joanna.forbes@apexmedia.aero Bookmark Content and Communications, A Spafax Group Company CEO, Bookmark Raymond Girard Senior Vice-President, Product, Bookmark Arjun Basu
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Shanghai Pudong International Airport.
Up Next: APEX ASIA
With air travel thriving in Asia, airlines are looking to strengthen their brand through passenger experience. APEX brings valuable insights to the region with APEX Asia – an event that fosters the exchange of ideas, industry best practices and the latest tech trends. Attendees will explore how airlines tap into the ever-growing market and deliver exceptional customer experiences. Representatives from Air China, Finnair, Philippine Airlines and more will headline the event at Shanghai Marriott Hotel City Centre on 13–14 March. For more details, visit apex.aero/events.
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Wireless
Bluebox Wow
Bluebox wIFE
Portable wireless streaming –
Fitted wireless streaming – 1,000’s of hours of IFE content
lightweight, scalable, battery-powered,
to passenger devices.
no mandatory STC.
Bluebox Ai
Bluebox Hybrid Connected portable IFE – provides
Standalone portable IFE –
secure EWC in a wireless cabin,
optimised & approved for delivering
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pre-loaded EWC on iPads.
Portable
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Portable IFE solutions – Bluebox Ai and Bluebox Hybrid – provide airlines all the benefits of IFE on the latest off-the-shelf technology. Approved for pre-loaded early window content, they also deliver a range of other video, audio, reading and gaming content to passengers. Bluebox Hybrid connects to additional content and services available on wireless streaming systems. Wireless IFE systems – Bluebox wIFE and Bluebox Wow – offer fitted and portable wireless options for streaming IFE content to both passenger and airline-owned devices. If you’re looking for options – for delivering IFE, replacing obsolete IFE systems, providing service recovery, delivering accessibility services, generating ancillary revenue – contact us to discuss how a Bluebox solution can work for you.
Contact us to discuss your portable & wireless IFE requirements. blueboxaviation.com info@blueboxaviation.com
APEX ASKS
“First, recognize change is a fact and try not to resist it; embrace it as if surfing a wave in the ocean. Second, find partners with customer-first business models and open technologies flexible enough to deal with an ever-more demanding future.”
“We have to embrace new means of collaboration. Business models should meet the needs of customers, and initiatives should focus on trendsetting innovation. This is key to strengthening a leading position in the industry.” LUKAS BUCHER, HEAD OF CONNECTIVITY PROGRAMS, LUFTHANSA TECHNIK
MIKE PIGOTT, VP, CONNECTIVITY, PRODUCTS AND SOLUTIONS, GLOBAL EAGLE
“If businesses want to recruit the best and brightest … they have to give the feeling that the purpose of business is not only profit, but that businesses can make the world a better place. And that, by the way, is good business.”
“Future-proofing is all about innovation. It’s a mixture of hard work and passionate people working in a culture of trust and empowerment. Magic bullets have very little to do with it.” KONSTA HANSSON, GENERAL MANAGER, REAKTOR AERO
“The ability to innovate in product and process is key. Build, co-create and buy. Today, a leadership position comes from effective execution, not the ownership of technologies.” KEVIN CLARK, CEO, BLUEBOX AVIATION SYSTEMS
“We must ensure that ‘digipreneurs’ lead businesses. They increase productivity through flexibility and maximize client satisfaction. The future will be ruled by enriched, data-agile businesses that tailor solutions quickly and cost-effectively.”
?
With a travel tech revolution afoot and promising to upend every facet of our business, we asked industry experts this question:
“The key is finding the right digital partners – large or small – who are agile and have a passion to disrupt. That might mean appointing experts outside the aviation sector, but who have an understanding of the challenges within it.”
How can we future-proof our businesses in an era of constant technological change?
TIM LETHEREN, CO-FOUNDER, INADVIA
BY MARYANN SIMSON | ILLUSTRATION BY MARCELO CÁCERES
JAGS BURHM, SVP, GLOBAL AERO MOBILITY, EUTELSAT
AL GORE, FORMER UNITED STATES VP, CO-FOUNDER AND CHAIRMAN OF GENERATION INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT, SPEAKING AT SLUSH 2017 IN HELSINKI
“Focus on selling the customer an experience, not just a product or a service. Strategic partnerships with companies that specialize in delivering such experiences are the key to future-proofing.” RICK WARREN, “THE BOSS,” WEST ENTERTAINMENT
“Organizational agility is key. A company’s level of agility can often be directly correlated to its people and their ability to adapt to change – creative people provide creative solutions to unforeseen shifts in the market, but they’re also taking advantage of that change for better protection of the business in the future.” NIALL McBAIN, CEO, SPAFAX
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INDUSTRY
Slushing Around With Finnair Every winter, Finnair dives headfirst into tech startup conference Slush to help advance its position as leading digital airline. BY MARYANN SIMSON
It’s important to connect with industry peers on matters of digital strategy at aviationspecific events, but there’s also something to be said for coloring outside the lines. Keeping an “ear to the runway” while monitoring other industries for signs of disruption are key to staying ahead. This is exactly why, for the last three years, Finnair has been participating in Slush, a startup technology event that
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Slush is an annual tech startup event in Helsinki that attracts about 20,000 attendees.
distribution strategy, and we’ve developed some [functions] within our app and added new features. Now we’re looking at how to develop inbound tourism to the Nordic region, so we’re looking for different applications and service elements we can provide to customers.” Finnair recently launched a chatbot operating with artificial intelligence. Finn “lives” in Facebook Messenger and was developed with Caravelo, a company that Wired named one of Europe’s top 100 startups in 2013. Using IATA’s New Distribution Capability, Finn answers frequently asked questions, learning as he goes, and referring to a human customer service agent if he gets stumped. The airline is also working
PHOTOS: SLUSH / SAMI HEISKANEN / JUSSI HELLSTEN / KAI KUUSISTO / PETRI ANTTILA
brings together around 20,000 tech-heads, speakers, investors and digital entrepreneurs from more than 130 countries, for a surreal few days in Helsinki every winter. “There’s every possible reason to be here,” says Juha Järvinen, Finnair’s chief commercial officer and vice-president of the APEX Board of Directors. “This is one of the biggest tech events in the world and certainly one of the biggest in Europe … It’s a great opportunity for us to introduce our product but also get to know companies and see how we can learn and develop products together.” Finnair understands the necessity of tuning into the tech sector and also accepts the fact that without risk there is little reward. By aligning with “fringe” events like Slush and by hosting numerous hackathons, the carrier has already learned a lot from the “just do it” mentality of the tech startup crowd. “We’ve had three hackathons already this year,” Järvinen says. “One in Paris, one here [in Helsinki] and one in the US. There have been concrete benefits in
INDUSTRY
“Our industry has to become more agile and learn to fail sometimes.” JUHA JÄRVINEN, FINNAIR
with Finnish startup Ultimate.ai to develop another chatbot for internal use. This one will assist Finnair’s customer service agents by providing them with a selection of possible answers or courses of actions to solve a problem, getting a bit smarter each time a suggestion is selected or rejected by staff. “Some of the things work, some of them don’t, but I think our industry has to become more agile, and learn to fail sometimes,” said Järvinen. “That’s traditionally very difficult for airlines because we are, of course, all about flight operations. But, when it comes to technical innovations we have to learn, fail, learn, fail. And we have to do it quicker, so we can actually get things out there.”
APEX Investigates: Slush Helsinki 2017 In association with Finnair and West Entertainment, APEX Media produced a video documentary to capture the top trends and emerging tech at Slush. We covered biometrics, AR, VR, deep learning and interviewed the organizers, speakers, startups and aviation industry players. Watch the video at youtube.com/theapexassoc.
APEX Media director Maryann Simson (right) and Steve Pearcy from Steve Pearcy Photography (left).
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BIG PICTURE
Imagine traveling from San Francisco to Los Angeles in a half hour – without having to board an airplane. Such is the promise of Hyperloop, a high-speed transport design unveiled in 2013 by Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX. Aerospace mainstays as well as upstart startups have poured resources and brainpower into what is neither plane nor train. Indeed, Musk has described Hyperloop, which would move people and cars in pods through a vacuum tube, as “a cross between a Concorde and a railgun and an air hockey table.” But Dirk Ahlborn, CEO of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT), says Hyperloop borrows most of its technology from the aerospace industry. “Our Hyperloop Transportation System is basically an airplane on the ground inside
In the Hyperloop Not a plane, train or automobile, Hyperloop is primed to disrupt the short-haul transportation market as a cross between all three. BY JORDAN YERMAN
a tube.” It’s no coincidence then that HTT has planted itself in the heart of Toulouse, France’s Aerospace Valley. “There are not many places in the world where talent with such unique skill sets are readily available,” Ahlborn says. “We were invited by the local officials and it made sense for us to have an R&D center located in close proximity to the aerospace companies with which we are already working.” That includes PriestmanGoode, in London, which designs airline cabins, and Atkins, in Paris, which helps airports build for the future. Meanwhile, Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group has invested an undisclosed amount in Hyperloop One, another startup building on Musk’s vision. The global strategic partnership even triggered a rebranding to Virgin Hyperloop One. Airbus and Italdesign unveiled Pop.Up, a concept for a modular zero-emission vehicle system compatible with Hyperloop, at last year’s Geneva Auto Show. And Airbus also sponsored WARR Hyperloop, a team of students from the Technical University of Munich, whose pod won the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod competition in 2017, by reaching 201 mph (324 km/h). Criticisms of Hyperloop include the cost of building and maintaining the tubes; the power requirements for running the system; the obstacle of coordinating with ground transportation to city centers; and the potential unpleasantness of a high-speed journey in a sealed tube.
How Long Will It Take by Hyperloop? Here’s the travel time for some of the proposed routes: Cologne–Hamburg
30 min.
New York–Washington
29 min.
Melbourne–Sydney
53 min.
Madrid–Rabat Toronto–Montreal Seoul–Busan Vijaywada–Amaravati Mumbai–Pune
62 min. 39 min. 30 min. 6 min. 20 min.
However, according to Ahlborn, “The system is 10 times safer than an airplane, which has many more failure modes, but most of the manufacturing, components and suppliers are similar.” He adds, “We recently announced with Munich Re, one of the largest reinsurance companies in the world, that they can insure the system, which is an important step to assure safety.” “We are ready to build,” Ahlborn says, pending laws and regulations from the government side of the equation. As for the future of travel, he adds, “Short-distance flights might become superfluous.”
PHOTO: HYPERLOOP TRANSPORTATION TECHNOLOGIES
At top speed, Hyperloop is expected to travel 760 mph (1,223 km/h).
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SERVICES
From the Source
BY STEPHANIE TAYLOR
In December, American Airlines (AA) began offering bedding developed by Casper, a US online mattress and sleep products company, in collaboration with airline amenity supplier Wessco International, in its premium cabins on long-haul international and transcontinental routes. In contrast to an earlier Casper campaign, during which the company drove a “bedmobile” around New York City, inviting passers-by to test its mattresses for 15 minutes at a time, AA’s bedding program enables the direct-to-consumer 34
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(D2C) brand to showcase its products to a premium audience over a full night’s sleep. “This collaboration brings together the best of two worlds, resulting in superior sleep products designed specifically for American Airlines,” Wessco chief marketing officer Petros Sakkis says. The partnership involved extensive research, with prototype testing and development taking months before the products met AA’s requirements. If the airline industry mirrors the consumer landscape, D2C brands will definitely begin to feature more prominently. JetBlue has already engaged with popular D2C brand Birchbox to offer Mint passengers amenity kits filled with samples from different brands (which have since been replaced with kits from Hayward & Hopper), and Wessco recently added online luggage brand Away to its partner roster. The suitcase company touts a D2C approach, which eliminates middlemen markups, thereby reducing the final cost for
consumers, as the way it maintains quality without sacrificing accessibility. A broader shift toward engagement with D2C companies seems to work in favor of airlines, too. Aligning with trendy, digital-first brands that passengers love on the ground can help an airline take a step forward in the race to offer the best value in the air. However, Sakkis insists the approach isn’t right for everyone. “Each airline program is unique in its objectives and requirements; a direct-to-consumer brand might be a great fit for one airline but not for another, depending on the program.”
AA’s bedding program enables the D2C brand to showcase its products to a premium audience over a full night’s sleep.
PHOTO: AMERICAN AIRLINES
Direct-to-consumer companies are flying their products on board, where a captive airline audience awaits.
Tailored for sleeping in flight: Casper products on board American Airlines.
ENTERTAINMENT
Crew Cuts What happens when airline staff by day become film crew by night.
Celebrating filmmaking talent among Emirates employees.
BY KATIE SEHL
PHOTOS: EMIRATES
From amateur shutterbugs who maintain collections of window-seat snapshots in their smartphone photo galleries to hardcore plane paparazzi who pack gear for trips to planespotting meccas around the world – it’s hardly a secret that aviation enthusiasts are prone to dabble in photography. So when Emirates airline employee and photography buff Ronald Awa founded the Emirates Group Photography Club in 2008, it wasn’t difficult to find coworkers who were interested in becoming members. As enthusiasm for the club grew and high-quality digital cameras became easier to come by, the idea to organize the Emirates Short Film Festival quickly took off. “I asked my fellow filmmaking enthusiasts to have our own film festival open to all employees, relatives and friends to participate in with no registration fees,” says Awa, who works in Group Medical Training for the airline when he’s not coordinating club meetings and festivals. By the time the club launched in 2013, they’d received more than 50 submissions from around the world, including Kenya, India, the United Kingdom and the United States. The decision to put the “short” in the Emirates Short Film Festival wasn’t by accident. “We all have our own day jobs,” Awa says. The difficult task of finding time
to shoot outside of busy days in the office, cockpit and cabin factored into this year’s theme: CineEmirates10, or “Perfect 10.” In other words, films submitted should not exceed 10 minutes or 10 cast members. And to win top honors at the festival, which took place on January 26, films must aim for 10 out of 10 in terms of production, social relevance and content.
“I asked my fellow filmmaking enthusiasts to have our own film festival open to all employees, relatives and friends to participate.” RONALD AWA, EMIRATES
Emirates is not the first airline to celebrate the affinity between aviation and movies with its own film festival – Air Canada celebrated its 10th annual enRoute Film Festival in 2016, and SWISS held its second Flying Film Festival last year. But Emirates is the first to focus on work created by employees. And with 102,669 team members from 160 different countries, the diversity of themes and perspectives is expansive, ranging from travel narratives to philosophical explorations. Submissions to the Emirates Short Film Festival don’t currently screen on board, but Awa thinks there’s potential that some of the films may be coming soon to an Emirates airline flight near you.
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CONNECTIVIT Y
Connecting China’s Consumers China has loosened its grip on in-flight smartphone usage. Will airlines reap the benefits? BY SETH MILLER ILLUSTRATION BY JORGE DE LA PAZ
The use of smartphones, once banned on aircraft by Chinese government regulators, has only recently been permitted. After receiving approval from the Civil Aviation Administration in China (CAAC), domestic airlines will have to decide how to meet passengers’ usage demands, ushering in an era of change for in-flight connectivity (IFC), which may finally mirror the country’s connectivity experience on the ground. Smartphone usage rates in China are higher than they’ve ever been, with nearly 731 million – 53 percent of the population – using mobile Internet as of December 2016, according to China Internet Network Information Center. And it’s for more than just communicating. With 74 percent of all online payments completed on mobile devices in 2016, smartphones are the cornerstone of the shopping experience in China and, perhaps soon, the airspace above it, too. Data traffic from Chinese users is consolidated into fewer apps than in other parts of the world. Multifunctional social media platforms are the driving force, with WeChat and QQ leading the charge. These apps integrate shopping channels and facilitate sharing just as much as consumption of data, creating a capacity challenge for IFC service providers.
“The onboard wireless server has many advantages for commerce.” JOSHUA MARKS, GLOBAL EAGLE
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Traditional commercial aircraft IFC solutions skew heavily toward bandwidth delivered to the aircraft versus headed to the ground, and that “limits how global satellite platforms can be adapted for Chinese IFC,” says Global Eagle’s executive vice-president of Connectivity, Joshua Marks. And with upstream demand from Chinese smartphone users expected to increase, mobile usage in flight will need to be offset with more onboard revenue opportunities. Rather than using customer access fees to cover the total cost of connectivity, airlines could look to sponsorships and shopping to bring in additional revenue. “Onboard retail will be a primary driver of IFC adoption, driven by airline-specific retail programs and access to third-party e-commerce apps,” Marks says. Marks is excited about the opportunity to leverage existing merchant systems for in-flight retail experiences over China. “The onboard wireless server has
many advantages for commerce: low latency, targeting capability and virtually unrestricted capacity for product views or videos,” he says. “Particularly in China, we’ll see more capacity on wireless servers reserved for retail applications alongside traditional streaming video on demand.” However, regulatory and economic challenges will remain, even as mobile device usage is adopted in flight. The CAAC typically issues only one-year trial licenses for service, making longterm investments in infrastructure risky. Bandwidth costs are also relatively high, with limited satellite capacity focused on the busy east coast travel corridor and government requirements that data be handled by ground stations in China. Addressing these issues will reduce uncertainty around the market – uncertainty that has multiple vendors suggesting current investments in the region are lower than they could be. Clarity on policy long term and access to a stable revenue environment will spur the capital investment needed to bring the Chinese IFC market on par with, or beyond, the rest of the world. Openness to IFC and merchandising will drive that agenda forward; hopefully Chinese regulators smooth the shift.
BATTERY
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COMFORT
Inside Modern Meadow’s Nutley, New Jersey, facility, scientists are brewing the latest revolution in textiles: lab-grown, non-mammalian leather that looks and feels like the real thing. “We ferment yeast – basically brew beer,” explains Chris Chou, Modern Meadow’s product manager. But instead of creating alcohol during the fermentation process, the company creates collagen – the protein in skin that gives leather its strength and elasticity – which is then assembled into a material structure. How exactly? That’s something Modern Meadow isn’t planning to divulge. “Assembly is our speciality. That’s where a lot of our novelty and technology lies,” Chou says.
Patented Leather Faux or faux pas: Could lab-grown leather become a trend in aircraft interiors? BY JASMIN LEGATOS ILLUSTRATION BY ÓSCAR MATAMORA
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The bio-leather material is actually a liquid that can be pressed into sheets and tanned, or formed around 3-D objects, into different textures, shapes and sizes. Because it’s not constrained by an animal’s size, it is easily scalable and, compared with traditional leather, which takes years to produce when factoring in time for livestock rearing, yields a quick turnaround – two weeks from start to finish. It also touts a kinder ecological footprint than those of petroleum-based synthetic leathers and the resource-heavy farming industry. There’s been interest in the bioengineered product coming from every corner of industry, including aerospace, Chou says. But the company isn’t planning to release its material, which it premiered in September under the brand name ZOA, for mass consumption just yet. Instead, Modern Meadow is partnering with different stakeholders to figure out what added value its bio-leather can offer. (There are two product releases using ZOA planned for this year in the luxury and sportswear arenas, though Chou declined to say any more.) While supplying the upholstery for an entire airplane would be “cool,” Chou would first want to understand how the material would function in an aviation environment; how durability would play with lightness or flammability, for instance. “There’s a lot rolled into the expectation
of any material on the interior of a vehicle, whether aerospace or automotive,” he says. Nico Den Ouden, business unit director of Mass Transportation at UK-headquartered E-Leather, knows a thing or two about those expectations. The company’s product, a high-performance leather-fiber composite, is created using offcuts that would otherwise end up in landfills. Today, more than 150 airlines use its material for their seat covers, but E-Leather was originally conceived for consumer products like footwear. After surveying the market opportunities, the manufacturer pivoted toward the aviation industry about a decade ago. To do that, it had to modify the composite structure to meet the flammability requirements of the FAA. “The leather fiber by itself does not meet that requirement, so we had to build that into our composite matrix, which is quite unique in our product,” Den Ouden explains. While he’s heard of Modern Meadow’s bio-engineered leather and is following developments with interest, he’s yet to see a specific demand from his aviation customers for this type of product. “[Our aviation customers] obviously have to take into consideration a lot of public interest groups and market trends rather than just one specific trend. That’s why in transportation markets, the take-up on trends is often slower,” he says. But if the market is moving firmly in the direction of bio-engineered textiles, that can quickly change.
ZODIAC INFLIGHT INNOVATIONS ZODIAC AEROSYSTEMS Connected Cabin Division
PHOTO: AIR NEW ZEALAND
C-SUITE
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C-SUITE
Avi Golan Chief Digital Officer, Air New Zealand
Curiosity and a knack for scanning the horizon for what’s next have served Avi Golan well through a career at some of the world’s biggest tech companies, and now as Air New Zealand’s chief digital officer. BY ARI MAGNUSSON
W
hen Air New Zealand first approached Avi Golan to be its chief digital officer through a recruiter in late 2015, Golan’s answer was “No thank you,” as it had been with many other offers. “My immediate response was a small laugh, but I went home to my wife and she saw it in a completely different way. She said, ‘You know, Avi, we’ve been in Silicon Valley for almost 18 years, and we’ve been talking about changing for a long time.’” With the kids having grown up and left home, Avi and his wife, Osnat, were looking for a chance to explore the world. “We thought, maybe this is an opportunity. So, I called back and said, ‘OK, let’s talk.’” He’d traveled to Australia several times, but the only thing he knew about neighboring New Zealand was that the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies were filmed there. Yet, the opportunity had Golan intrigued. “The first question I posed to Christopher Luxon, the CEO of Air New Zealand, was, ‘Why would you come to Silicon Valley? Go to an airline country, or another state where you hire people in aviation. I don’t know where, maybe Boeing town?’” Air New Zealand, it turned out, was vying to be a leading digital organization, and Golan liked what he saw. “I thought it would be fascinating to take all the things I learned in my experience from working in Silicon Valley to another company to create a technology company. I didn’t know what that was at that time, but I thought it could be a challenge that I’d be happy to take.”
Born and raised in Israel, Golan served four years in the country’s army and air force. Having excelled at math and physics during high school, he studied computer and information sciences at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, the country’s biggest science and engineering university. Upon graduating, he worked for defense organizations followed by stints programming at large computer science firms, before immersing himself in the early days of Israel’s tech startup scene in the mid-1990s. Being able to take an idea and then design and create something from it meant computer programming was a natural fit. “I’m not an artist by any means. I don’t know how to draw, or paint or play a serious musical instrument, but my outlet was programming, and for me, programming is creating something,” he says. The socially awkward computer programmer stereotype never applied. He earned a reputation as a people person and was soon promoted to a leadership role with responsibility over teams of developers and product people. It also meant his time doing hands-on programming was shorter than usual. Just before the turn of the millennium, Golan transferred to Silicon Valley. A few years went by with executive roles at startups, but by 2008, he’d joined Google. During his six-year period at the company, he saw it grow from around 2,000 employees to 20,000. His knack for leadership and strategic thinking helped him climb the corporate ladder to become director of Google’s Search Ad Products. >
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C-SUITE
This was followed by what he describes as “a short gig” at Barnes and Noble, before spending two years as general manager and vice-president of Intuit, an accounting and tax software firm. Golan says his time at the 35-year-old company came with more baggage than at Google. “When I arrived there, I was looking at everything through Google eyes and was saying, ‘Why are you doing things like this?’” As a newcomer, his ideas and proposals for changing one of Intuit’s biggest products were met with looks that said, “Are you crazy?” Two years later, the bemused looks on colleagues’ faces were gone and he was presenting these same ideas to the company’s board of directors. The response was, “We should do that.” Golan says that had he jumped from Google to Air New Zealand, he might not have been as successful. “It would have taken me longer to learn what change leadership is all about. Intuit was almost the step before to learn about how to change an organization.” As Air New Zealand’s chief digital officer, Golan says hindsight has revealed that importing a Silicon Valley-type culture wholesale to an airline is easier said than done. “People really rejected any need to transform.” Unlike Silicon Valley firms, airlines, he says,
PHOTO: AIR NEW ZEALAND
“Why would you come to Silicon Valley? Go to an airline country, or another state … Maybe Boeing town?”
are operational and industrial organizations with safety concerns and risk adversity programmed in their DNA. “Over the first year, I realized I talked about technology, platforms, services, innovation, capabilities that enabled us to move faster, revenue opportunities, competitive opportunities, but nothing resonated, until something struck me – that it was all about people and changing the way they work.” Golan had to grapple with the fact that he could no longer easily hire new employees with the exact skill sets he required, as was the case in Silicon Valley. “I’m in New Zealand, there’s not actually enough people here to do all of that. I have 700 people, I can’t change or replace each one, and that wasn’t the plan from the get-go,” he says. “I needed to find a way to retrain them, to teach them and have them want to learn, and want to accept the change, constant change, because that’s what Silicon Valley organizations do all the time. They’re constantly changing, because technology is constantly changing. If you don’t move fast enough, you risk being left behind.” Two years into his role, Golan says Air New Zealand’s makeover into one of Australasia’s best digital organizations is taking effect. In February 2017, the airline released an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot called Oscar. In May, it trialed Microsoft’s HoloLens mixed-reality headsets to explore how such devices could one day help crewmembers by displaying customer information in front of them. And in November, Air New Zealand partnered with Winding Tree, a Switzerland-based travel startup, to explore applications based on blockchain technology. He says the airline is also experimenting with the cryptographic technology in cargo, revenue management and finance. “The more I think about it, the list could go on and on. I feel like we’ve opened the floodgates and the river is flowing. The team is enabled to actually explore a lot of things,” he says. “I love the fact that people just come to work and have fun. It’s a happy environment.” What about Silicon Valley? Can it learn anything from the airline industry? “One thing I can tell you for sure is that a lot of Silicon Valley organizations are very internally consumed. They’re not as customer obsessed as Air New Zealand. I can easily tell you that the Googles, Apples and Ubers of the world can come to Air New Zealand and learn how to listen to customers and how to work with customers.”
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AIRLINES:
THERE IS STILL TIME TO REGISTER
23-25 April 2018
APEX MultiMedia Market is Traveling To Paris!
Your airline’s 2018-19 content selection starts at the APEX MultiMedia Market! Join 50+ of the industry’s top global distributors and experience an overwhelming library of new and classic content. APEX airline members receive a complimentary registration for the entire event! Airlines that register before 1 March will be entered in a drawing for three complimentary hotel nights at our host hotel and event venue, Paris Marriott Rive Gauche Hotel & Conference Center.
“I look forward to the MultiMedia Market each year because it’s a great chance not only to find out about upcoming content for the year ahead, but also an amazing opportunity to meet new distributors and explore different avenues for sourcing exciting and often alternative programming.” –Cathy Walters, Senior Manager Onboard Media, Virgin Atlantic Airways
REGISTER NOW!
Visit apex.aero/MMM for more details.
Regional & blockbuster movies
GUI content
Games
Apps
Audio
TV/short subject
“I would encourage airline staff to take the time to come to the MMM: the better you know the content market, the better your IFE product will be." –Andy Grant, Manager Passenger Entertainment & Communications, Emirates
NETWORK
SMART CITY, As airports become more than just transit hubs, they’re turning into microcosms that emulate smart cities. BY CAROLINE KU
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RENDERINGS: HUDSON YARDS
W
elcome to Hudson Yards, a mixed-use development on the West Side of Manhattan. Like many New York City neighborhoods, this one has residences, offices, shops, restaurants, bars and public spaces. And being in a part of the city that sees a frequent stream of out-of-towners (Penn Station) and international tourists (High Line), there’s even a 16-story climbable monument, which could rival the Statue of Liberty as an NYC icon on Instagram.
NETWORK
SMART AIRPORT
RENDERINGS: METHANOIA © ZAHA HADID ARCHITECTS
Renderings of Hudson Yards (left) and Beijing Daxing International Airport (above).
What makes Hudson Yards a neighborhood to watch is that it’s a testing bed for future smart cities. The 18-million-square-foot site will run on a microgrid powered by two cogeneration plants and its own system of sensors to monitor its air, temperature, traffic, pedestrian flow and environment. Big data will also be harnessed to innovate, optimize, enhance and personalize the Hudson Yards experience for residents, employees and visitors. It’s no wonder why Intersection, the group of
smart-city consultants who worked on the development and are now based out of the 26th floor of 10 Hudson Yards, sees potential for such a prototype to flourish in airports – another microcosm where sensors and cameras are used in abundance for security, baggage tracking, queue monitoring and air traffic surveillance. “If you think about it, an airport should be one of the most integrated and seamless experiences in modern life,” says Max Oglesbee, head of Client Strategy,
Intersection. From a logistics perspective, the who, what, where and when of any trip are determined the moment someone books a flight. Given the airport’s role as the facilitator for the traveler and the airline (it has the itinerary of both parties), it should be able to choreograph their actions for maximum efficiency (delays and traffic factored in, of course). “With all of that intelligence, it should be a seamless experience where all the frictions are taken away,” Oglesbee says. >
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NETWORK
Artful structures: Hudson Yards (right) and Dubai World Central (below).
However, most airports dedicate one piece of technology per service needed, Oglesbee notes. Air traffic, CCTV video security, private and land mobile radio (PMR/LMR) and public Wi-Fi are each managed by a separate department. “This disparate network architecture discourages collaboration and information sharing among departments, which is crucial to attaining seamless operations and optimal efficiency,” telecommunications company Alcatel-Lucent notes in its white paper Re-imagining the Airport Network for 2020 and Beyond. Take, for example, the reporting of security wait times at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution observed multiple manual methods: one where an airport worker identifies a random traveler in line and records how long it takes for that person to get to the front; another where a TSA agent hands a laminated card to the person at the end of a line and times how long it
“AN AIRPORT SHOULD BE ONE OF THE MOST SEAMLESS EXPERIENCES IN MODERN LIFE.” MAX OGLESBEE, INTERSECTION
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A DIGITAL MASTER PLAN During the development of Hudson Yards, Intersection held a town hall meeting to audit the many ways tenants might use the space. What it came up with was a digital master plan that listed all the infrastructure and technology that would be required to keep the neighborhood running. Everything from elevators to building security to ticketing systems was considered. In the end, Intersection counted many different systems, which were narrowed down to a handful of features that would be presented in various services and interfaces. >
RENDERINGS: HUDSON YARDS; DUBAI AIRPORTS
takes for that person to travel to the front; and another where wait time information is crowdsourced and reported via an app. But the results from these methods don’t always match, so the TSA continues to advise travelers to arrive at the airport two hours ahead for domestic flights, and three for international flights. “Most of the time, these systems are broken and fractal, inefficient, not only from a technology standpoint, but a user standpoint as well,” Oglesbee says. “It’s a complete waste of precious natural resources to deploy redundant systems on top of one another.”
NETWORK
One example is 555TEN, a luxury apartment building near Hudson Yards that created an app enabling residents to access building services on their mobile devices – everything from receiving delivery notifications to booking a Pilates class to arranging a dog walk. The app is seeing high engagement: According to the New York Times, 93 percent of rent is paid through the app. Similar resident apps make tasks such as reserving a common area for a party or calling the building manager about a leak seamless. There’s even opportunities for local businesses to push promotions through the app. For residents, this layer of digital interaction on top of the physical experience is a cool tech perk. It’s also convenient – and convenience is a huge asset when you’re continually on the go. To describe the type of user being targeted by the app, here’s a picture of a thirtysomething New Yorker on her way to the airport to meet a client in San Francisco: She’s checked in online with her airline already; her rideshare is about to pick her
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up any minute now. Once she’s in the car, she receives a notification that her flight will be delayed by 25 minutes. She decides to have a meal before boarding her flight and realizes she forgot to pack her noisecanceling earplugs. So she orders a caprese sandwich from an airport eatery and a set of noise-canceling earplugs from the electronics booth. Both will be delivered to her at the boarding gate. “Trip planning for this person is about friction avoidance – not necessarily the fastest travel time,” Oglesbee explains. “Airports need to keep up with this next-generation of travelers who are thinking differently, who don’t have an allegiance to an airline. It’s about convenience, 100 percent.” In other words, airports need to get smart – but not just dress the part. “Modernizing [airport] communications network infrastructure is a critical step,” writes Richard van Wijk, head of Aviation Practice, Nokia, a telecommunications consultant who oversaw the first LTE air-to-ground network for aviation in Europe, on SmartCitiesWorld,
Greenery abounds indoors and out. Hudson Yards (right) and Istanbul New Airport (below).
NETWORK
As airports expand their services, they’ll become better connected, too: Airport technologies will communicate with one another, breaking the “one service, one technology” relationship; beacons and GPS will create a more dynamic airport that’s responsive to travelers’ needs. And with these improvements, the airport is increasingly resembling the smart city. “Airports are like cities in microcosm, and they face many of the same challenges as the cities they serve,” van Wijk writes. The first airports laid down the lanes for aircraft to take off and land. They had limited infrastructure but were sound. As airports evolve from big buildings on the outskirts of cities where flyers meet their airplanes to vibrant venues accessible from the city, travelers might see airports differently, too. Van Wijk further observes: “Commercial aviation is a very competitive business, and the airports that offer the most attractive facilities and amenities – along with operational excellence – tend to win out in the competition for routes and travelers.”
RENDERINGS: ISTANBUL NEW AIRPORT; HUDSON YARDS
“MODERNIZING [AIRPORT] COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE IS A CRITICAL STEP.” RICHARD VAN WIJK, NOKIA a website about smart city infrastructure. “The reasons are clear: Smart airports, smart cities, smart anything depend on data, and communications networks are the means for transporting and analyzing that data.”
THE CHANGING ROLE OF THE AIRPORT Tomorrow’s airports – megahubs like Istanbul New Airport, Dubai World Central and Beijing Daxing International – have each been designed to accommodate upward of 150 million travelers a year. They’ll be equipped with automated checkin, bag-drop kiosks, biometric scanners and
robots; they’ll feature shops, restaurants, bars and public spaces. Comarch, a global IT business solutions provider, calls this next-generation facility “airport 3.0.” “The airports of the future will fully exploit the power of new technologies, including sensors, processors, mobile apps, gamification and behavioral analytics,” writes Vincenzo Sinibaldi, a former business development manager at Comarch Italy, on CityMetric, a website about urbanism. “The key is broad integration process among airlines, retailers, restaurants, cafés and parking facilities. In this model, airports can cross-sell and upsell to passengers.”
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PHOTO: COURTESY OF DODO SU
Q&A
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Q&A
Dodo Su
LOCATION:
CAN
PRODUCT MANAGER CHINA SOUTHERN AIRLINES
NOW READING:
Traditional Chinese medicine books
Dodo is currently taking charge of in-flight entertainment and connectivity software definition at China Southern Airlines, where she has also worked on market analysis, tourism product design and cabin configuration. She holds a master’s degree in international accounting and consultancy from the University of Reading, UK, and a bachelor’s in accounting from Jilin University, China.
What’s the one item you can’t travel without? My mobile phone, especially in China where you can just scan a QR code using WeChat to purchase an apple from a grocery store, unlock a shared bike or place an order and pay the bill in a restaurant. A lot of what a modern Chinese citizen does daily is conducted in just one application. By Q3 of 2017, WeChat had 980 million monthly active users, closing in on one billion. Forget about your wallet; you will only need to bring your mobile. China Southern began a trial period for Wi-Fi on select domestic and international routes in May 2016. Can you tell us a little more about that? The trial period was actually rather short, and we have been formally providing the Wi-Fi service for over a year now, with no plans to terminate the service. About 15 Airbus A330-300 aircraft are equipped with the Panasonic eXConnect system, offering the service on routes from Guangzhou to Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Beijing; from Beijing to Amsterdam; and on other routes operated with the aircraft. By 2022, we will receive over 50 new wide-body aircraft with linefit connectivity systems.
“A lot of what a modern Chinese citizen does daily is conducted in just one application.” By October 2017, we had provided the Internet service on more than 6,000 flights, to more than 100,000 users. For longhaul flights, especially in the daytime, the demand for connection is rather high, with 40 users on average. For short-haul flights (less than two hours), there are just a few users. However, with the ban on in-flight smartphone usage now lifted, the demand for Internet connection is expected to experience explosive growth.
What sort of business models are you exploring for Wi-Fi service? Currently, our priority is to provide passengers with a better experience with this complimentary service. We are at the very beginning of exploring business models, and it is hard to tell whether it is better to charge passengers for the usage
YEARS IN THE INDUSTRY:
8
FAVORITE AIRPORT:
Singapore Changi BRAND OF SUITCASE:
Samsonite
of traffic or charge business partners, or let the passengers and business partners share the service costs. Establishing a suitable business operation model will be our main focus in the next few years. How is increasing competition among connectivity providers in China good for airlines and passengers? The traditional IFE market is relatively enclosed – there aren’t many suppliers – meaning the hardware and software upgrade cycle usually takes rather long. However, the connectivity business requires more partners, including the system, satellite, content and broadband access providers, to be involved. The prospect of a prosperous market is so obvious and the entry thresholds are relatively lower than with traditional IFE. Therefore, more and more players want a piece of the pie, and the market is becoming more competitive than ever before. Sufficient competition will push the suppliers to continuously, and efficiently, improve their products and services, and the costs will tend to be reasonable as well. Airlines will have more freedom to select the best products and services, so they can provide the highest-quality experience to their passengers.
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10-12 APRIL 2018
THE DESTINATION FOR THE AIRCRAFT INTERIORS INDUSTRY. Aircraft Interiors Expo 2018 10 - 12 April 2018, Hamburg Messe, Germany Aircraft Interiors Expo is the world’s market leader event dedicated to airlines and the supply chain to source the latest innovations, technologies and products for the cabin interiors, inflight entertainment, connectivity and passenger comfort industries. Register today www.aircraftinteriorsexpo.com
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APRIL 2018
AUTONOMOUS
AUTONOMOUS AUTONOMOUS
ME Driving, learning, cleaning and healing are just some of the capabilities of aviation’s new crop of materials and machines. ILLUSTRATIONS BY MARCELO CÁCERES
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AUTONOMOUS
Artificial intelligence (AI) can only fulfill the second half of its name by learning from its experiences. One high-profile application for AI has been the deployment of airline chatbots, which blur the line between social media and personalized customer service. A chatbot must be fast, helpful and personable – or it risks alienating the people it’s trying to help. KLM’s selflearning chatbot, BlueBot (her friends call her BB), assists passengers on Facebook Messenger, displaying what the airline describes as a “helpful, friendly, professional and edgy” personality. According to Pieter Groeneveld, senior vice-president, Digital, Air France-KLM, the airline’s 250 human customer service
agents serve as backup for BB’s interactions, stepping in when she reaches the edge of her ability to comprehend a customer’s request. Martine van der Lee, KLM’s manager of Social Media Development, adds that a key first step in developing BB was classifying which questions would go to her and which would require a human reply. The parameters for this classification, however, are changing as BB “learns” new data. Natural language processing (NLP) is a sort of holy grail among AI developers, since the library of relevant interactions is necessarily vast and continuously growing. Every conversation counts.
“When you develop a conversational experience for a travel brand, you need to support different ways of understanding locations and dates,” van der Lee says. “It is very natural for a user to say, ‘I want to fly tomorrow and return the day after,’ but relating this to the actual dates is technically more complex. We also have a lot of airport codes that can be a word as well – for example, FUN, SEA, PAY, et cetera. We had to make sure that the chatbot would return the right answer when someone would say, ‘I want to fly out on Sunday’ and not return with ‘OK. So you want to fly from Bousso Airport [OUT].’”
“When you develop a conversational experience, you need to support different ways of understanding locations and dates.” MARTINE VAN DER LEE, KLM
SELFLEARNING As data is poured into chatbots and computers, they’re getting to know us better. BY JORDAN YERMAN
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Aircraft maintenance is another data-rich – and data-hungry – aspect of this industry. Korean Air sped up its maintenance turnover once it started feeding past repair cases, technical guidelines, inventory, in-flight incident history and more into IBM’s Watson. The AI digested the data on hundreds of airplanes, offering advice to technicians on today’s problems based on yesterday’s cases. As new data is generated and novel issues are encountered, they’re handed over to Watson, which just keeps getting smarter.
AUTONOMOUS
SELFDRIVING Airport transportation that knows where it’s going. BY HOWARD SLUTSKEN
Self-driving. Autonomous. Driver-assistance enabled. No matter what you call it, or how you feel about it, you’re on the road to having an electronic copilot – or perhaps an autopilot – help you drive your car. It seems that nearly every car company is embracing new technologies that are giving cars the “smarts” to anticipate and react to everyday driving situations. Lane-keeping, collision-avoidance braking and smart cruise control are just some of the features appearing in cars from mainstream Toyota to high-tech Tesla. Airports in Atlanta, Seattle and Singapore have operated computer-controlled shuttle trains for years, linking terminals to reduce walk times for travelers. And now, autonomous mini-buses are being deployed in airports such as Helsinki and Adelaide for a fraction of the cost of building dedicated tram links. These technologies have even been filtered down to something as ubiquitous as a check-in kiosk that, thanks to SITA Labs, can now move autonomously to congested areas of the airport and print boarding passes and luggage tags. Panasonic, for its part, has teamed up with WHILL to create the WHILL NEXT autonomous robotic wheelchair, which travelers with reduced mobility can summon through a smartphone app.
Once dispatched, the unit navigates a busy terminal using built-in sensors and mapping software. Trials of WHILL NEXT are underway at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport, with plans to deploy the robotic wheelchairs throughout Japan’s airports in time for the 2020 Olympics. Airliners have had autopilots for decades, and military drones have been flying for years – both supervised by pilots in the cockpit and on the ground. But could recent pushes toward “true” artificial intelligence (AI) by Airbus and Boeing have us flying in pilotless airplanes in the near future? “Right now, the public, the airlines and the airlines’ insurance underwriters are not ready to think about this,” says Henry Harteveldt, travel industry analyst, Atmosphere Research Group. Even once they are, humans won’t be removed from the equation. “I don’t think that when we talk about autonomous aircraft, it will literally mean no one is minding the store,” Harteveldt says. “I believe there will always be some cadre of people involved who will be overseeing an airline’s flight operation. There will simply be far fewer people who are considered ‘pilots.’” So, expect to see your pilots’ smiling faces for a while yet, Harteveldt says. “It’s going to be a crawl-walk-run process, and that crawl phase is going to be very long, very slow and very deliberate.” In the meantime, passengers will have to content themselves with the nearer-term possibility of another type of self-driving vehicle in the cabin: Engineering solutions firm Altran has developed a robotic trolley concept that can navigate independently through an aircraft’s aisles, serving food and beverages and even collecting garbage at the end of a flight.
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AUTONOMOUS
The ability for organic beings to heal themselves is such a given – we rarely give it a second thought. Researchers, however, have. They’re taking cues from Mother Nature and coming up with ways for synthetic materials to replicate this behavior. For the aerospace field, it’s a potentially industry-changing innovation. Just imagine: a cracked airplane wing that can fix itself mid-flight without human intervention, or a seat cover that doesn’t need to be removed to be repaired. In 2015, a team of researchers out of the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom created a wing made of a carbon fiber composite embedded with microscopic beads. On impact, the tiny capsules release a liquid that can seep into a crack and harden, as a result of a catalytic reaction, restoring the wing to nearly full capacity. The idea is akin to when we cut ourselves. Blood fills the wound, hardens and creates a scab. Soon enough we’re good as new. Lead researcher Duncan Wass clarifies, however, that this technology would only work for tiny cracks. “But micro-cracks can lead to catastrophic failures,” he told the BBC. Researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne have devised a similar technology for wings and fuselage made
Imagine: a cracked airplane wing that can fix itself, or a seat cover that doesn’t need to be removed to be repaired.
SELFHEALING No need to call the aircraft technician over small dents and cracks. These materials will repair themselves. BY JASMIN LEGATOS
of carbon fiber sheeting. In their model, small polymer capsules are embedded in the sheeting so that when a crack develops, the polymer melts and fills the fissure with resin. Notably in the RMIT model, the polymer can be used multiple times while retaining its original performance, researcher Chun Wang told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Self-healing principles in the aerospace field aren’t solely restricted to aircraft exteriors. Melik Demirel, professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics at Penn State University, and his team have developed a liquid coating made from bio-synthesized squid ring teeth that can be used to turn a variety of textiles – from nylon and synthetics to natural fibers – into self-healing ones. It uses water to bind the torn piece of fabric back together. Demirel’s team is looking into how heat and light can serve this function, too. Demirel explains that beyond selfhealing, the material can also be used for heat management – it absorbs heat, which could be mighty nice if you’re sitting in an airplane for 12 hours. “During a long trip, your body temperature needs to be cooled off,” he says. “A seat that has this textile is a better seat.”
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AUTONOMOUS
Last August, Ohio’s Akron-Canton Airport deployed self-cleaning mats for its 250 TSA security bins, so passengers could feel more comfortable about placing their glasses, phones and other personal items where somebody’s dirty footwear may have been moments before. Instead of heavy metals or harsh chemicals, the mats contain mineral nano-crystals that continually oxidize organic contaminants 24 hours a day using light. The company behind the mats, NanoSeptic, was involved in a survey conducted on the day of their introduction and found that of 152 travelers, 52 percent would be interested in purchasing a portable self-cleaning surface to use while on the go. NanoSeptic’s TravelWell product line, which
received the innovation award at the ISSA/ Interclean conference in Las Vegas late last year, offers such a personal self-cleaning travel mat, designed to make passengers feel more comfortable placing food or personal items directly on a tray table or aircraft lavatory surface. Mark Sisson, partner at NanoSeptic, believes it could even be used as a means of ancillary revenue, as well as to improve brand perception. “The airline could provide a custom branded travel mat as an in-flight amenity for a reasonable charge, just like headphones. Our small travel mat retails for $4.95, so is in line with other amenities,” he explains. “It could also provide the travel mat for free to club members or first-class passengers, who would use it not just on the plane, but wherever they went.” Since the mats don’t use chemicals or toxins and nothing is released from their surface, Sisson believes they could also be beneficial for food and drink preparation areas such as aircraft galleys. “The only thing we tell food service companies is the mats should not be used as cutting surfaces, because that can damage the surface just as an abrasive cleaner would,” he says.
SELFCLEANING These security bin mats don’t know dirty. BY STEPHANIE TAYLOR
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Instead of using heavy metals or harsh chemicals, the mats contain mineral nanocrystals that continually oxidize organic contaminants.
In terms of cleaning, the mats are waterproof and, once rinsed, should be patted down with a microfiber cloth. Sixty-four percent of NanoSeptic’s survey respondents claimed they would choose an airport, airline or other travel business that uses self-cleaning products over those that don’t. Boeing made a splash in March 2016 with news it was developing a self-cleaning lavatory that could kill 99.99 percent of pathogens by beaming ultra-violet light on surfaces like the toilet seat, countertop and sink when the space is unoccupied. The cleaning cycle would take less than three seconds and even eliminate odors caused by bacteria, but the company has yet to provide an update on its progress.
FROM
activating TO
relaxing
When traveling often, FlyYourVeda® is a unique choice to support your body’s demands according to your needs FlyYourVeda is a new inflight meal concept that accurately responds to the body’s demands during a flight. Adapted to onboard conditions, the menus are based on easily digestible, nutritious, high quality foods. The concept was created by the LSG Group Culinary Excellence team and translated into LSG Sky Chefs’ “activating” or “relaxing” menus. FlyYourVeda allows you to pursue a healthy lifestyle even during long-haul flights and supports your wellbeing on board in the best possible way. Find out more about the FlyYourVeda concept and menus:
PHOTO: COURTESY OF TANGERINE
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Q&A
Weiwei He
LOCATION:
LCY
HEAD OF CHINA BUSINESS TANGERINE
YEARS IN THE INDUSTRY:
11
Weiwei is a designer and project manager at tangerine, an international strategic design consultancy with a strong focus on customer experience. She designed a best-selling mobile handset that brought one client’s market share to 45 percent. Weiwei graduated from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London, and speaks Mandarin as well as English.
What are some of the airline projects you have participated in during your 11 years at tangerine? We have worked on a wide range of projects all over the world, from designing cabin interiors for Azul Brazilian Airlines to Virgin Australia. We also design concept seats for the key OEM suppliers in the US, Europe and Asia. One of the most memorable projects that I worked on was for Cathay Pacific’s new A350-900 XWB. Tangerine designed the color, material and finish for the entire plane, and part of the design process was to set a creative direction for the A350 fleet. This involved drawing inspiration from the exciting magic and wow of Hong Kong and comparing this with the natural calming beauty of the countryside. We created a color palette that is drawn from the imagery of both environments, all of which helped to set the creative direction. This imagery manifested itself in physical form: Bamboo reeds are reflected in the bulkheads of the cabin interior, for example. But for me, the economy-class seat was the most special. We designed a new six-way headrest – a wonderfully comfortable product that allows you to really rest.
“What gives tangerine an advantage is our heritage in designing products and services that people actually use.” How do you unlock your clients’ unarticulated needs and collaborate with them? Right from the beginning, we immerse ourselves in the project. Key stakeholder engagement starts immediately as we identify the pain points and highlights of the product or service that we are designing. By observing and asking the right questions, we are able to gain insights into the customer experience and start to map out what the unmet needs could be. The better the client is at communicating and the higher up the management chain we go, the better the results. Working on the business-class cabin for Virgin Australia, we had access to the chief customer officer, who listened to us and was quick to respond to our suggestions.
BRAND OF SUITCASE:
Mandarina Duck FAVORITE INDUSTRIAL DESIGNER:
Dieter Rams THE FUTURE OF FLIGHT WILL BE:
Hassle-free
It is this sort of collaboration with the client that yields the best results for the overall customer experience. How does your experience designing consumer tech products for the Asian marketplace affect the way you look at aircraft cabins in this market? Tangerine has a large portfolio of consumer product design from companies such as LG, Samsung, Nikon, BOE and Huawei. In the last 28 years, we have designed over 80 products for LG, and worked for 11 different mobile phone manufacturers. One of my favorites is the C7100 phone for Huawei, which was the best-selling middle-market phone in the Chinese market in 2008. With cabin interiors, what gives tangerine an advantage is our heritage in designing products and services that people actually use. At 35,000 feet, you want your passengers to know intuitively how to operate an IFE screen or how to instinctively recline in a business-class seat. Increasingly, airlines are looking for differentiation, and we are looking to help them achieve this objective. Also with our experience in consumer electronics, we understand the consumer aesthetic in the Far East. In the end, we want to create an environment that people will love to sit in.
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Wi-Fi 6000
MINIMALIST
www.donica.com
donica@donica.com
+86-755-26983727-8039 / +1-954-526-0000
NUTRITION
Serving You Well The airline celebrity chef is being traded in for the micronutrient expert. What will passengers be eating next?
PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK
BY VALERIE SILVA
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NUTRITION
I
t’s Monday morning. A department head sends out a series of e-mails so absurd his colleagues begin to suspect he may have spiked his coffee. As the week progresses, he grows despondent and lethargic, ready to log off hours before the workday is over. The reason? He was ricocheted halfway across the world for a week of business meetings and made it back to his desk without a moment squandered. The scenario is not uncommon, says Papillon Luck, founder of 15th Degree – a supplement line designed to mitigate the adverse physiological effects of long-haul air travel – and a former associate of said department head. “Business travelers are being asked to do the impossible: travel the world and perform physically and mentally at their peak as if they were in their home city,” Luck says. “On landing, most have to return to the office and continuously perform without any consideration for acclimatization.” As a way to help combat this,
15th Degree’s launch product, the Travel Fatigue Wallet, available online, includes five powder blends that target particular high-altitude ailments at different points in the travel journey.
A PHYSIOLOGICAL UNDERTAKING The body functions in question – cognition, sleep, energy, immunity, digestion and circulation – are impacted by the misalignment of the biological clock and the distinct characteristics of the aircraft cabin environment: reduced air pressure, a corresponding decrease in oxygen and a drier atmosphere. Each powder blend, developed in conjunction with a team of nutritionists and scientists, has been carefully conceived, right down to the recommended consumption time. The formula for digestion and circulation, for instance, which contains Pycnogenol, vitamin B3, nicotinamide, aloe vera, charcoal and live probiotic cultures, should be consumed one hour after departure and then again four hours into the journey. The human body has about 100 trillion bacteria, both good and bad, living in the gastrointestinal tract – the “gut,” in common parlance. The good bacteria help us digest food and absorb nutrients,
but can be depleted by stress, consuming antibiotics and poor diet. Research shows that disturbances to the circadian clock are another disruptor, wreaking nearly as much havoc on the microbes living in our gut as on our energy levels and sleep cycles. “Chronobiology experts have observed and studied circadian rhythms in many classes of bacteria; the idea that gut bacteria have circadian rhythms is not in doubt,” says Christopher Babayode, nutritional therapist, author of Farewell Jet Lag and 15th Degree’s travel wellness and sleep expert. “To influence the function of gut flora, we overcome a disruptive or distressing gut environment with large numbers of good, friendly bacteria. Doing the same when flying would seem rational.” The live probiotic cultures in the powder include Lactobacillus acidophilus and Bifidobacteria, two probiotic strains proven to be among the most robust.
“Chronobiology experts have observed and studied circadian rhythms in many classes of bacteria.” CHRISTOPHER BABAYODE, 15TH DEGREE
PHOTO: 15TH DEGREE
15th Degree’s supplements are each designed for a particular moment in the air travel journey.
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NUTRITION
or allergens, but says nixing these elements proved difficult: “No one liked the energy snacks we created. It was depressing.” Luck likens her initial idea to the Mood Food Box released in 2017 by now defunct Monarch Airlines, admitting that she “can’t fathom how they stopped the ice cream from melting, as we couldn’t.” Food scientist and experimental psychologist professor Charles Spence was behind Monarch’s mood-enhancing menu concept, along with chef Jozef Youssef, founder of gastronomy design studio Kitchen Theory. “I provided the recommendations based on scientific research and Jozef and the team at Kitchen Theory created four tasty courses that incorporated the recommended ingredient strategies,” Spence says. “There was a very chewy rice item, building on the suggestion that chewing gum can help people relieve stress; black ice cream with licorice and echinacea to boost the immune system; and plenty of umami from tomato and mushroom powder to overcome inhibited taste perception in the air.” Umami – at this point widely recognized as the only flavor profile able to withstand low cabin pressure and humidity – is actually enhanced by the
aircraft cabin’s 80 to 85 decibels of background noise (equivalent to the sound of city traffic in a car), Spence says. For Spence, the ingredients of a meal are just as important as the accoutrements and environments that surround them. Indeed, his most recent book, Gastrophysics: The New Science of Eating, takes an in-depth look at how flavor is perceived through all of the senses. In it, he writes about British Airways’ “Sound Bite” soundtrack, which drew on his lab’s findings about the relationship between sound and taste. “The idea was that passengers on long haul would order their food and then plug into a headset to get music to match what they were eating: either matching ethnicity of music with that of food – a bit of Italian opera with lasagna, for instance – or bringing out a sonic seasoning element. Sweet music sweetens food.” However, Spence admits he is still “struggling to create the perfect sonic salty backdrop.” >
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
PHOTOS: MONARCH AIRLINES
Luck may have settled on the science of supplements, but her quest for healthier air travel began in the kitchen. “My vision was to have a healthy food box with an accompanying app, but this was disastrous for many reasons,” she shares. “We couldn’t white label a range of existing products, as every ‘healthy’ product analyzed by our nutritionists didn’t have enough quantities of any superfoods or ingredients to make a difference. They were just full of sugar.” Next, Luck tried to create recipes without sugar
Qantas’ probiotic juice shots (above) and Monarch Airlines’ mood-boosting menu (right).
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LSG’s FlyYourVeda activating menu includes superfoods that support cognitive function.
Calorie-free musical accompaniments are one way for airlines to scale back on salt and sugar overload; thoughtful cutlery design is another. “The material from which the fork and especially the spoon are made can modify the taste of food,” Spence writes. Foods eaten with stainless steel, for example, are rated as saltier than those eaten off copper or zinc, according to research conducted by Spence and a team of researchers from the Institute of Making in London. According to Spence, British Airways is among the airlines giving sweet and savory utensils a go.
BODY POSITIVE While Luck has set her sights on maximizing micronutrient content and Spence on making the most of sensory cues, Margaret Allman-Farinelli, professor of Dietetics at the University of Sydney, says keeping well in flight is simpler than it seems. “Provided passengers normally consume healthy diets, the body has stores of vitamins and minerals that can supply our needs for weeks and months … The best advice is to eat a healthy diet before, during and after flights, and to go easy on the alcohol.” Allman-Farinelli is a member of the Charles Perkins Centre, an academic institution working with Qantas to improve the passenger experience for
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what is slated to be one of the world’s longest-ever commercial flights: Perth to London, 17 hours nonstop aboard a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. The partnership involves research into the cabin environment, strategies to counteract jet lag, menu design and more, and has already yielded a customized probiotic cold-pressed juice shot and a trial during which passengers were given wearable technology to measure the impact of ultra long-haul travel on mental state, immune function and sleep patterns. While the menu for the route, scheduled to take off on March 24, is yet to be determined, Allman-Farinelli suggests it won’t stray too far from the basics: fruits and vegetables, grain products, a protein and a dietary source of calcium. “The amino acid tryptophan, which is found in high-protein foods like lean red meat, chicken, fish, cheese, nuts and soy,
“The material from which the fork and especially the spoon are made can modify the taste of food.” CHARLES SPENCE, GASTROPHYSICS: THE NEW SCIENCE OF EATING
is a precursor of the serotonin and melatonin pathway in the brain,” she says. “When we consume this amino acid with adequate carbohydrates, it enables tryptophan to enter the brain and produce more melatonin for better sleep.” But the more parties turning to food science to up their wellness offerings, the more hypotheses proposed. And airline catering supplier LSG Sky Chefs, which counts among its clients Lufthansa, TAP Air Portugal, LATAM and Delta Air Lines, has come up with yet another approach. “Our bodies typically take longer to digest meals based on fat, animal protein and whole grain,” says Bernadette Murg, a nutritionist working on LSG Group’s FlyYourVeda menu concept. “When such meals are eaten on a night flight, many people encounter problems falling asleep, which is why the FlyYourVeda relaxing meals are based on plant proteins and vegetables that are easy
PHOTOS: LSG GROUP
NUTRITION
NUTRITION
“The body has stores of vitamins and minerals that can supply our needs for weeks and months.” MARGARET ALLMAN-FARINELLI, UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY
to digest.” Think warm black salsify and nutmeg soup, and sweet potato-pumpkin ragout. For passengers who’d rather clock into work than conk out on the armrest, the FlyYourVeda activating menu is replete with brain foods like walnuts, avocados, berries and eggs. Although distinct in composition and consequence, both FlyYourVeda menus are designed to counteract an unsavory physiological truth: Intestinal gas expands at high altitude. “We’ve decided not to include
food that makes you feel full and bloated, but instead combine ingredients in a novel way to create dishes that really help you feel comfortable during a flight,” Murg says. In the enduring pursuit for passenger comfort, airlines have traditionally been more concerned with the aircraft seat than the inner workings of the body seated in it. But then again, it hasn’t been that long that wellness bloggers from every corner of the Internet have been touting the unexpected benefits of turmeric and the ABCs of gut flora. “A decade ago, when travelers were less aware or interested in their wellness, airlines could ‘get away’ with not focusing on it,” Luck says. “Now, they have no option but to take this seriously. If they don’t, passengers will become loyal to the airline that does build a proposition around their wellness – not just the act of transporting them from A to B.”
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Q&A
Ben Fuller
LOCATION:
SLC
DIRECTOR OF MARKETING, AMERICAS FTS TECHNOLOGIES
NOW WATCHING:
Parks and Recreation
YEARS IN THE INDUSTRY:
6
Ben spearheads the marketing and business development divisions in North and South America, as well as in the Caribbean, for FTS Technologies, a leading provider of turnkey wireless solutions for the airline industry. Prior to joining FTS, Ben served as director of Sales, Latin America, and director of Global Marketing at digEcor.
What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received? “Own the banker.” People like to do business with people they know, understand and trust. The term “own the banker” refers to who the bank is more likely to lend money to: the guy who attends the banker’s kid’s soccer games, has dinner with his family and becomes a close friend, or the guy who shows up last minute with the world’s greatest idea. Own the bank, own the relationship, be sincere and honest and you can be successful. What have the last 12 months been like for FTS? The last 12 months have gone by super fast and been a whirlwind – in a good way. As a small startup in a risk-averse industry with a number of entrenched companies, it’s been a blast battling to break into the market and get a solid foothold, which we have successfully done. We’ve partnered with five airlines already, received supplemental type certificates from both the FAA and EASA, shown our product around the globe and been well received. We’re excited about 2018 as we continue to grow our footprint and get our product flying in more planes and markets.
“Companies can mine big data all day long, but how about knowing passengers’ names or where they’re headed with the info on your wristwatch?” FTS is largely funded by a Chinese enterprise. What are the benefits and the challenges that this presents? The challenge can often be the stigma that if it comes from China, it may have been farmed out to the quickest and lowest bidder and may therefore be lacking in quality. It’s a hurdle we jump over often. Luckily at FTS, we control the entire product, both hardware and software, and we know its background and the quality standards we hold ourselves to, not to mention the FAA, EASA and regional air authorities. That control of our offering then becomes a benefit, as it allows FTS to be more agile, better able to customize solutions and move quickly in the marketplace with a team that is global, smart, efficient and innovative.
PASSPORT STAMP YOU WISH YOU HAD:
Egypt
THE FUTURE OF FLIGHT WILL BE:
Simpler
What is your favorite feature of the Xstream system? I love the Flight Butler smartwatch application. It just makes sense for flight attendants to have everything they need in terms of information right on their wrists. It simplifies their job and personalizes the flight experience for the traveler. Every airline wants to drive loyalty – what a simple way to make it happen. Companies can dig through and mine big data all day long and try to find ways to be more effective in a number of areas, but how about knowing passengers’ names, where they’re headed and what carousel their luggage will be at with the info on your wristwatch? It’s simple and powerful at the same time. What do you think FTS products might look like in the year 2050? Just spitballing here, but how about a seat or small space on an aircraft where you personalize everything around you, from the lighting and ambience to what you are seeing around you? Think of a holodeck on a plane. We would let passengers customize it when they buy their tickets. Imagine the ancillaries that would come from that, all the personal upgrades and customizations. Maybe you’re at the beach or a virtual U2 concert for the whole flight, and then you want to be onstage with a customized guitar. The airline could charge for all three virtual experiences, and everybody wins.
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ENERGY
Future Power Commercial airlines won’t be weaning off petrol anytime soon, but the industry is experimenting with renewable energy sources to power parts inside the cabin. BY MARISA GARCIA
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ENERGY
PHOTO: ZAL TECHCENTER
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s our digital devices work around the clock, we are moving further into an age of high power demand and dependency. We are, at the same time, more conscious of the impact our energy consumption has on the environment. We want to enjoy the limitless possibilities of technology, but we also want to do it sustainably. In the quest for greener power, we look for alternative solutions in the sun and the wind, as well as in the elements. The successful around-the-world tour of the Solar Impulse aircraft and the channel crossing of Airbus’ E-Fan electric aircraft demonstrate that flying without petroleum jet fuel is possible. Indeed, Airbus, Rolls-Royce and Siemens have announced a plan to develop a commercially viable hybrid regional passenger jet by the 2030s, and Boeing is also conducting research on the viability of hybrid electric aircraft. But, as Barnaby Law, Airbus’ fuel cell and hydrogen technology program director, explains, reaching the goal of hybrid electric flight is like climbing a stairway, not running a dash: Each step up the path forms the foundation for the next. Law has been researching hydrogen fuel cell technology at the ZAL TechCenter in Hamburg for approximately six years. While the
research being conducted today is forwardthinking, Law says it is vital for the aviation industry to think generations ahead. “Airbus has been working on this topic for 15 years,” he says. “The reason that we’re investing so much is that, if we develop new aircraft, we have to think 50 to 100 years into the future. If you think back 50 to 100 years, we still had steam trains and horse-drawn carriages. So, we have to be very conscious about what could be a future fuel and what the emission requirements will be.” Law says the properties of hydrogen fuel cells are promising for auxiliary power units (APUs) in aircraft and, ultimately, for propulsion. They are advantageous because their weight is lower than tanks of jet fuel in relation to their power output. In other words, they run more efficiently and quietly, while reducing CO2 emissions. >
The fuel cell lab at the ZAL TechCenter (above).
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ENERGY
“Liquid hydrogen could be a future fuel. It doesn’t have to be the only fuel but it’s a strong contender.” BARNABY LAW, AIRBUS
PHOTOS: AIRBUS
E-Fan X is slated to fly in 2020 (above). A concept for electric-boosted propulsion (left).
“Liquid hydrogen could be a future fuel. It doesn’t have to be the only fuel but it’s a strong contender,” Law says. He describes progress on fuel cells as a series of building blocks working toward development of an APU replacement, which would use the same interfaces as existing APUs, and run on the ground at the airport without producing noise or carbon emissions. Brianna Jackson, communications specialist at Boeing Research & Technology, says Boeing is committed to investigating new technologies that will deliver greater fuel efficiency and environmentally progressive innovations. This commitment is reflected in a variety of partnerships and special programs. “We work with industry partners, government and academia to explore and develop technologies that will benefit our existing and future products,” Jackson says. “Currently, we are studying a wide range of possible future applications for electric
aircraft, from small aircraft to large airliners, both inside Boeing and with partners such as NASA, propulsion companies and universities; this research includes fuel cells, power inverters and other components for more electric subsystems and eventually primary aircraft propulsion.” If powered by sustainable sources, electric and hybrid electric propulsion systems could offer significant environmental benefits, and reductions in fuel, noise and cost. “Environmental benefits are dependent on improving the performance and weight of electrical components and energy storage,” Jackson says. “The successful deployment of regional and larger commercial aircraft will be paced by the development of improved batteries and electric components: motors, controllers, generators, distribution systems.” Like Law, Jackson says the timeline for adoption of electric systems will evolve in stages. “We might see smaller hybrid electric jets for regional travel in the 2020s and short-range commercial aircraft – like a regional airliner or small version of a Boeing 737 – operating in the 2030s. It is worth noting that large long-range commercial aircraft, like the Boeing 777 or 787, are unlikely to be displaced by electric aircraft in the foreseeable future.” While it’s common to think of power in terms of big-picture goals, like powering aircraft, much of the energy needed day-to-day is for other noncritical systems. Take, for example, the significantly higher demand for power outlets on aircraft to charge electronic devices. After all, we rely on our smartphones, tablets and laptops not only as productivity tools, but also as extensions of or replacements for the in-flight entertainment system. Power sources that make electrical systems more efficient can help distribute power to a greater number of passengers for longer, without interfering with critical flight systems. >
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ENERGY
How Hydrogen Fuel Cells Work Water molecules are broken down to extract hydrogen.
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Compressed hydrogen gas is channeled to the fuel cell.
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Hydrogen molecules are split into electrons, which produce an electric current, and protons, which are exposed to oxygen and turned into water.
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“There’s so much potential in fuel cell systems, but you have to do the research and the development.”
Like a battery, the fuel cell stores electricity, but it’s also capable of creating electricity.
O H
FLORIAN PILLATH, ZAL CENTER OF APPLIED AERONAUTICAL RESEARCH
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In 2015, B/E Aerospace was short-listed for a Crystal Cabin Award for a solar window shade with USB power outlets, called Solar Eclipse, which could put sunshine to good use for passengers seated by the window. Meanwhile, Diehl Aerosystems’ Crystal Cabin award-winning DACAPO (Distributed Autonomous Cabin Power) concept is designed to supply the cabin with electrical energy generated by a power cell inside the company’s MAGIC (Modular Autonomous Galley with Integrated power Cell), which runs on a mixture of propylene glycol and water. “Energy limitations today restrict the simultaneous operation of galley insert consumers (like coffee makers, ovens, chillers),” Ronny A. Knepple, head of Energy Systems, Diehl Aerospace, says. “Catering processes must be tailored to these constraints today. Our concept, including a load management function, enables the simultaneous use of all consumers in such a galley and supports more-flexible operations on board.” The fuel cell galley kitchens will be ready for production in a few years’ time, and can be introduced into aircraft and airport processes with little change. There were three key drivers to Diehl’s vision for an energyefficient cabin, Knepple shares. “First, environmental requirements – our concept uses clean, quiet and sustainable energy resources, so it’s green. Second, technical requirements – it facilitates numerous new cabin comfort features, as well as the transition to the more electric aircraft architecture, which requires significantly more electrical energy. And third, flexibility requirements – in order to make it easier to adapt the passenger cabin to market requirements, new conditions must be created for easier aviation certification of the components used.”
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From solar and alternative fuels to new power sources, the industry is working on bringing more power to the skies and on board. Florian Pillath, systems engineer, ZAL Center of Applied Aeronautical, responsible for the development and management of the fuel cell systems test bench at the ZAL TechCenter, says what he enjoys most about his role is pushing the future forward. “Every experiment, there is something coming that you didn’t expect, but you can use it. There’s so much potential in fuel cell systems, but you have to do the research and the development,” Pillath says. The industry has flipped the switch on alternative power and has no plans to turn it off.
Diehl’s DACAPO is powered by a fuel cell integrated in the galley.
PHOTO: DIEHL
1
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TRAVELOGUE
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TRAVELOGUE
Snack in the Box Sometimes great business ideas come in small packages. AS TOLD BY HARVEY ALPERT, WRITTEN BY CAROLINE KU ILLUSTRATIONS BY FRANCISCO OLEA
T
here’s a lot that goes into putting food on a tray table that passengers aren’t aware of. They tend to focus on what is served, what it looks like, what it tastes like and, after they’ve eaten their meal, whether or not it left them feeling satisfied. Having been in the airline onboard service business for 50 years, I’ve seen how food and beverage has evolved from full meals in coach class on 90-minute flights to what it is today – a synchronized choreography of suppliers, distributors and caterers pulling off complex logistical feats to accommodate each airline’s unique needs, racing against the clock to deliver on time. But there was a period when everything was slower. Meals were served seat-side: Lettuce, croutons and dressing were tossed inside a stainless steel bowl in front of the passenger, and flight attendants carved pre-seared sirloin right in the aisle. Now, there are generally no meals served in coach class for domestic US flights, and business- and first-class meals are much less elaborate. It was word of mouth that led me into this industry. I attended Michigan State University’s hotel and restaurant program knowing I didn’t want to work in hotels or restaurants. Someone told me about
Sky Chefs, which was owned by American Airlines at the time, and so I got my feet wet at its Boston operation doing the dirty dishes that came off those flights while training to be a manager. Later, I became an account supervisor for Pan Am, and then a purchasing and storeroom manager for Marriott. This was in the late 1960s and early ‘70s, before Marriott was known for its hotels, when they were opening airline kitchens everywhere. My first assignment with the company was in Chicago where I managed operations during the “graveyard” shift. Then I was transferred to San Francisco, then to Los Angles, and then back to San Francisco. From my San Francisco base I would travel to Seattle, Las Vegas, Albuquerque, Salt Lake City, Phoenix and Guam for a few months at a time, sourcing food and beverage in those places. During that period, I saw a disconnect between what airlines needed for in-flight food and beverage service and what traditional restaurant food and beverage distributors were able to supply. They struggled to deliver the right thing to the right place at the right time. They couldn’t keep up with the flight cycles. Except Sage Foods, which delivered exclusively to airline catering kitchens. This
company understood the whole movement, how to juggle lasagna, Salisbury steak and chicken with rice against the flight cycles. It knew how to keep up with airline demands and ensure passengers didn’t eat the same meal they ate when they flew in as when they flew out. And so I joined Sage for two years managing its West Coast distribution center. Over time, I got to know many of the brokers and learned they earned commissions based on what was delivered to their assigned geographic area. If a broker representing the northeast sold blueberry muffins to an airline that distributed the goods equally across the northeastern, midwestern, western and southern states, then the commission would be split four ways among each of the brokers in those territories. From that I gathered I could be the broker for all of the United States – but exclusively for airlines. I founded Harvey Alpert and Company (HACO) in 1977 under that very premise. HACO now represents more than 20 companies including CocaCola, Minute Maid, Mondelez (Nabisco), Pepperidge Farm and King Nut. We offer a range of snacks, beverages and frozen entrées, enough to make a meal and everything in between. >
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TRAVELOGUE
But in 1978, the year after I started HACO, the airline industry took a sharp turn: The Airline Deregulation Act was introduced. Until that point, all airlines charged the exact same fare between Point A and Point B. The only differentiator was the passenger experience: what the cabin looked like, how comfortable the seats were, what liquor or wine was poured and what food was served. Now airlines compete on airfare, and it is harder to keep amenities such as fresh food on board. Here was the challenge: If there were 90 passengers on a flight, there would be 90 sandwiches, with 90 sets of condiments on 90 trays. If 10 passengers didn’t show up, the airline would throw away 10 servings. And of the 80 passengers, if seven didn’t want a sandwich, well now the airline was throwing away 17 sandwiches. Because a fresh sandwich had to be refrigerated, you had to either use it on the flight or lose it. Needless to say, airlines were “sandwiched” between wanting to serve delicious food on board and the pressure of keeping a lean operation. I can recall the moment I started Oakfield Farms, the packaged snack business, which makes shelf-stable and frozen snacks, in addition to meal boxes, for both onboard retail and complimentary service in the US and Europe. Continental Airlines had asked me about putting together a sealed, shelfstable snack to replace its fresh sandwiches. With a non-perishable food item, it wouldn’t 78
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matter if only 73 out of the 90 passengers took the snack. Whatever was left could go on the next flight, cutting the waste factor way down. My packaged snack solution for Continental was a five-by-seven-inch plastic tray that contained crackers, a wedge of cheese, a plastic knife for spreading the cheese, a Ghirardelli chocolate bar, a box of raisins and a napkin. I did a premium version that contained everything above, plus dried fruit and a cookie in a shrinkwrapped berry basket. Both were served in coach. By 1979, we were producing packaged snacks for American, United, TWA and Hughes Airwest airlines among others. It was a quantum change for HACO. Come next year, it’ll be 40 years since I’ve been in the packaged snack business. In that time, we’ve come up with hundreds of variations of snack boxes: a light bites trio with a fig bar, almonds and gummy bears; a kids’ kit with apple sauce; and an upsized snack box with a protein bar, turkey jerky, roasted chickpeas, Parmesan crisps and coconut toffee. One of the most popular is the tapas box, with olives, salami, hummus and pita chips. In business, it’s typically the big “out of the box” idea that leads to innovation and success. For me, it was the “snack in the box” idea and seeing a gap in the industry that needed to be bridged when the airline industry was going through a monumental change.
What hasn’t changed since I started in the business is the speed of airplanes and where they fly to – at least for now. LAX is still LAX, and airplanes still fly at 500 mph. There was a brief period of supersonic travel. Now it’s the mission to Mars. Maybe there’s going to be a “Beam me up, Scotty” idea that will involve moving people’s minds without moving people’s bodies. But as far as I’m concerned, all of that is science fiction right now. And no matter how people travel in the future, they will always want something to eat and drink on board.
FROM
integrated solutions TO
customer value
As trends come and go, they constantly shape our world and influence all industries. At the LSG Group, we follow a 4-step development strategy to individually help our customers manage these transitions. Look. Think. Connect. Create. Within the LTCC process, our team of experts efficiently implements, via structured approaches, integrated solutions to ensure value for our customers for every task in travel business. Explore now our mission video:
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NEWS
Headlines
Top news stories from the airline and passenger experience industries.
IT’S AIR TIME! EASYJET AND IMMFLY DELIVER ON IFE PROMISE
TWO-THIRDS OF AIRLINES AIM FOR SATELLITEBASED IN-FLIGHT CONNECTIVITY BY 2020, SAYS SITA
PHOTOS: EASYJET, GETTY IMAGES, BOOM TECHNOLOGY
More than two-thirds (69 percent) of airlines will offer satellite-based in-flight connectivity by 2020, according to SITA’s 2017 Air Transport IT Trends Insights research. Just under half of respondents (43 percent) said they plan to offer free in-flight connectivity by 2020, while 42 percent said they will charge for Internet access. When it comes to emerging technologies, 67 percent plan to invest in the Internet of Things, 52 percent in artificial intelligence and 44 percent in wearable technology for employees.
EasyJet officially launched Air Time, a wireless in-flight entertainment (IFE) platform developed by Barcelona-based Immfly, on five aircraft in December. The activation delivered on a promise, announced at APEX EXPO in September, to have the system live by the end of 2017. Air Time provides content including audiobooks, e-books and TV shows from Fox Non-Theatrical, Euronews and other media brands. It also features digital publications such as the Financial Times, Bloomberg and Le Figaro, in addition to onboard retail, 3-D moving maps and destination-specific weather details.
DELIVEROO LAUNCHES AIRPORT FOOD DELIVERY SERVICE AT DXB Travelers flying from Terminal 3 of Dubai International Airport can now order meals to their departure gate thanks to a new partnership with Deliveroo, which went live in November. The DeliverooDXB concept, which is the Gulf region’s first airport delivery service, enables travelers to order food from the airport’s dining outlets through Deliveroo’s app or website for delivery “within minutes of ordering.” The meal delivery service says it’s looking to expand to other international hubs around the world.
JAPAN AIRLINES INVESTS IN SUPERSONIC STARTUP BOOM Japan Airlines (JAL) has invested $10 million in Boom Technology, a Denver-based startup hoping to develop a supersonic passenger jet by the mid-2020s. As part of the investment, JAL also secured options to purchase up to 20 supersonic aircraft. “Through this partnership, we hope to contribute to the future of supersonic travel with the intent of providing more ‘time’ to our valued passengers while emphasizing flight safety,” JAL president Yoshiharu Ueki said in December.
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Track Wear
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The sensors in these travel accessories will help tech-enthusiast flyers monitor their well-being and surroundings throughout the journey.
SOLUTIONS
BY KATIE SEHL | ILLUSTRATIONS BY ALEXANDRE AFFONSO
S OLUTIONS
SPONSORED BY
Track Wear A look at the gadgets and gizmos that help frequent flyers keep track of their sleep, steps, heartbeat and more.
SOUND SLEEP Noise-canceling headphones have long been a fixture in the frequent traveler’s carry-on, but Onkyo’s Kokoon headphones go a step further with integrated EEG brainwave-sensing technology. Audio softens gradually as the listener drifts off to sleep, kicking in the phones’ monitoring tech and Intelligent Sleep Alarm, programmed to ring at the lightest point in a sleep cycle.
BY KATIE SEHL | ILLUSTRATIONS BY ALEXANDRE AFFONSO
FRESH AIR FLAIR French startup Wair sells scarves and neck tubes that filter air before it’s inhaled – perfect for tight aircraft quarters where germs are easily transmitted. A built-in sensor detects bacteria, pollen and pollution, and a companion app can alert users when to wear the scarf.
WATCHBANDS When it comes to geek chic smartwatches, labels such as Guess, Hugo Boss and Tag Heuer are trotting out stylish timepieces with features that range from payment tech to biometric tracking. As an alternative, the Montblanc e-strap and crowdfunded Smart Buckle are smart bands that can be slipped around a favorite old-fashioned watch face.
ELECTRIC SKIN On the surface, temporary tattoos are a seamless way to merge high tech with high fashion. Imagine, as MIT Media Lab researchers have with DuoSkin, accessorizing with gold-leaf digital skin jewelry. These techy tats can transform skin into a smartphone-connected interface for controlling a playlist or as an NFC tag that can be scanned for data.
SMART KICKS In development with easyJet, Sneakairs are vibrating smart shoes that, using Bluetooth and Google Maps technology, can guide wearers around town. For travelers keen to have more than one techy pair of shoes, ODD Industries’ SuperShoes insoles perform a similar function, Under Armour’s Gemini 3 sneaks track running data metrics, and ShiftWear’s walk-to-charge kicks change color via smartphone controls or preset movements.
TRANSLATOR BUDS Translating on the fly can be a challenge, but the Pilot earpiece from Waverly Labs is an able, ear-friendly assistant. Using Bluetooth technology and noise-canceling microphones, the earbuds identify and translate more than 16 languages, including Arabic and Mandarin, in real time – a boon in an environment as multilingual as an airplane cabin.
CONNECTED CLOTHING From Supa’s heart-rate monitoring bra to Courrèges’ self-heating coat, nearly every clothing item now has a smart counterpart. Most high-tech clothing is geared around tracking biometrics, but some, such as Nadi X’s yogapose-holding pants or Lumo Lift’s posture-correcting items, provide fitness-related assistance. Levi’s Commuter Trucker Jacket with Jacquard by Google, allows users to control their mobile experience from the sleeve.
BAND AIDS Experienced by one in three Americans, chronic pain is often magnified under the strain of travel. NeuroMetrix’s Quell pain-relief band is an electrical nerve stimulation unit that pulses electrical signals transcutaneously through the body, triggering the natural pain response system. When paired with its app, the band allows users to customize therapy and track insights on sleep, pain and activity.
NEWS
LUFTHANSA UNVEILS DETAILS OF NEW BUSINESS-CLASS SEAT Lufthansa revealed details of its new business-class seat, which will debut on its Boeing 777-9s scheduled for delivery starting in 2020. The new cabin will feature fully lie-flat beds measuring up to 86 inches in length, which will be staggered in 1-2-1 and 1-1-1 configurations. Lufthansa passengers will have the choice between seats with more desk space and seats with a longer bed. The German carrier says IFE will be displayed on a “much larger screen, in full HD.”
AMERICAN AIRLINES OPTS FOR AIRBUS AIRSPACE XL LUGGAGE BIN RETROFIT
US CARRIERS GET STRICTER ON SMART LUGGAGE RULES American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Alaska Airlines no longer allow passengers to check smart luggage items unless lithium-ion batteries are removed beforehand. The new rules came into effect in January across all three carriers. The move toward stricter regulations was spearheaded by American Airlines and IATA (International Air Transport Association) to decrease the risk of fires caused by lithium-ion batteries.
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AIRBUS, ROLLSROYCE AND SIEMENS TO DEVELOP HYBRIDELECTRIC FLIGHT DEMONSTRATOR Airbus, Rolls-Royce and Siemens have launched a partnership to develop a hybrid-electric flight demonstrator, which is anticipated to fly in 2020. The E-Fan X will represent a significant step forward in hybrid-electric propulsion for commercial aircraft. “The lessons we learned from a long history of electric flight demonstrators … will pave the way to a hybrid single-aisle commercial aircraft that is safe, efficient and cost-effective,” Paul Eremenko, Airbus’ chief technology officer at the time, said. “We see hybrid-electric propulsion as a compelling technology for the future of aviation.”
PHOTOS: LUFTHANSA, AIRBUS
Airbus announced in December that American Airlines (AA) will be the first customer to opt for an Airspace XL luggage bin retrofit. The larger overhead storage will provide 40 percent more space for carry-on baggage and will be installed on 202 of the airline’s A321s. “Thanks to this Airbus cabin retrofit, passengers on AA’s A321s will be able to board faster and will enjoy an overall improved travel experience,” Laurent Martinez, head of Services by Airbus, said.
WELCOMES NE W MEMB ERS
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As an APEX Member, gain instant access to the most exclusive airline industry directory today!
Visit: apex.aero/directory
APEX Events
APEX TECH
APEX ASIA
30–31 January 2018 Los Angeles, US
13–14 March 2018 Shanghai, China
#APEXTECH
#APEXAsia
APEX MULTIMEDIA MARKET
23–25 April 2018 Paris, France
APEX TECH
19–20 June 2018 Los Angeles, US #APEXTECH
#APEXMarket
APEX EXPO
24–27 Sept. 2018 Boston, US #APEXEXPO
APEX MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA
4–5 Nov. 2018 Dubai, UAE
APEX EXPO
16–19 Sept. 2019 Los Angeles, US #APEXEXPO
Tweeting from one of our upcoming events? Be sure to use the designated hashtag so other members can join the conversation!
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Follow us on Twitter @THEAPEXASSOC
Three Ways to Participate in the 2018 Official Airline Ratings Airlines are touting their four- and five-star Official Airline Ratings, and passengers are already rating their flights for the new year. These ratings will determine the coveted 2018 Official Airline Ratings. More ratings mean more feedback for your airline.
At the 2017 APEX Awards in Long Beach.
PHOTO: VANCE WALSTRA
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DOWNLOAD & RATE Encourage passengers to download the TripIt app and rate their flights after landing. Using a five-star scale, passengers can rate their overall flight experience, as well as their experience in five subcategories: seat comfort, cabin service, food and beverage, entertainment and Wi-Fi (which are used to determine the Passenger Choice Awards).
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RECEIVE PASSENGERS’ DATA Airlines have the opportunity to receive annual, monthly or quarterly data in exchange for a combination of IFE, digital, in-app or print ads. Contact info@apex.aero for more information about the various packages.
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LEVERAGE PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL Take advantage of the turnkey promotional collateral provided by APEX and TripIt, or create your own customized airline ads!
Visit apex.aero/ratings for more information. APEX.AERO | V8 E1 |
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Five Reasons to Go to APEX MultiMedia Market in Paris APEX MultiMedia Market (MMM) is the only global industry event that brings together in-flightentertainment (IFE) content buyers with the world’s leading content distributors. Many airlines and content service providers (CSPs) make this intensive three-day event a priority to their annual contentproduct planning.
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CHECK OUT THE HOTTEST IFE CONTENT
Visit the sold-out exhibit floor, designed to provide a one-stop shopping experience for all in-flight content needs. The expansive exhibit area will feature the future of in-flight content ranging from TV, movies, GUIs, games, apps and audio.
Here are five reasons you should say bonjour at this year’s MMM in Paris, 23–25 April.
GET ON TOP OF NEXT YEAR’S TRENDS
Education sessions, which will occur on the third day of the event, will feature top industry experts who will share insights on hot topics. Plan to attend a full day of captivating, interactive sessions, which will cover everything from the latest trends shaping in-flight viewing and content consumption to issues that are top-of-mind to airlines, CSPs and distributors.
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ANDY GRANT, MANAGER OF PASSENGER ENTERTAINMENT AND COMMUNICATIONS, EMIRATES
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“Every year we’ve attended, we’ve discovered new and exciting programs. Even if you use a CSP, I would still recommend that airlines attend so they can speak to distributors face to face, create valuable relationships and fully understand what each content supplier can offer. It’s your chance to make a difference to an airline’s [IFE] lineup.” CATHY WALTERS, SENIOR MANAGER OF ONBOARD MEDIA, VIRGIN ATLANTIC
PHOTOS: ZACARIAS GARCIA, RICHARD THEEMLING
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“To learn what’s happening in the content industry gives us the chance to plan more efficiently to ensure we get the big hits as early as possible and to find those undiscovered gems or sleeper hits that can make all the difference.”
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FLY HOME WITH THE COVETED TRIVIA TROPHY!
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AIRLINE ATTENDANCE IS FREE (AND THERE IS A CHANCE YOUR STAY COULD BE AS WELL)!
APEX airline members, and CSPs attending with an airline delegate, receive complimentary registration. Airlines that register before 1 March will be entered into a drawing for three complimentary hotel nights at our host hotel and event venue, Paris Marriott Rive Gauche Hotel and Conference Center.
Test your content and entertainment knowledge at the popular MultiMedia Quiz! Start gathering your trivia savvy team members now. The winner will take home the highly coveted trophy and fantastic prizes.
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“The social events are much more intimate and offer an opportunity to meet many people that you would likely not have met at EXPO.” LISSA LAUBERTIE, VP OF CLIENT SERVICES, SPAFAX
CONNECT WITH CONTENT SUPPLIERS AND DISTRIBUTORS
MMM gives invaluable opportunities to connect with the world’s leading airlines and their CSPs, including informal mixers, market appointments and a memorable after-hours networking event.
“The variety at MMM is good, from foreign film and TV to comedy and drama to lifestyle and kids [content]. It’s a must-attend event as all the important distributors will be there. And it is great to see everybody and great for networking, too!” DAPHNE BRAAM-RODGERS, VP OF CLIENT SERVICES, GLOBAL EAGLE
“The main benefit for airlines is to be exposed to new sources of content with an international flair. We can be kept up-to-date on the latest blockbusters, but we can also meet smaller distributors from France, Italy, Germany and other countries that have local content to enrich the IFE libraries of large global airlines.” ERIC LAUZON, MANAGER, COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS AND SPONSORSHIPS, AIR CANADA
To register for APEX MultiMedia Market, visit: mmm.apex.aero. For any questions, please contact Lauren Costello, director of Programs and Services, APEX, lcostello@apex.aero.
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IFSA
IFSA’s GAEC to Produce Fifth Version of Its World Food Safety Guidelines The IFSA Government Affairs and Education Committee (GAEC) maintains an open dialogue with appropriate worldwide regulatory and legislative bodies to represent IFSA’s interests before these groups, and work cooperatively toward the common goal of public health, safety and security. GAEC works diligently to provide information, guidance and education to the IFSA membership regarding food safety. To accommodate our rapidly changing industry and ever-increasing challenges, GAEC developed the World Food Safety Guidelines for airline catering and will work on an enhanced Version 5 in 2018. These guidelines, utilized worldwide, serve as a comprehensive guide and valuable resource that assists the onboard industry in meeting and exceeding food safety standards. GAEC ensures the educational needs of the
membership related to these issues are provided through the development of training materials and facilitation of workshops. Additional information on IFSA’s GAEC can be accessed on the Food Safety FAQs and Resources section of ifsa.aero. GAEC initiatives include World Food and Safety Guidelines (WFSG), United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) labeling, Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), pre-clearance, ramp safety, regulated garbage, special meal codes and halal guidelines. In addition, the European Union Task Force focuses on regulatory issues within the European Union, and meets with stakeholders to ensure understanding of the airline catering industry’s issues and positions including labeling initiatives, ramp safety outreach and special meal code outreach to IATA.
The guidelines serve as a valuable resource that assists the onboard industry in meeting food safety standards.
Engage With IFSA IFSA has a new home! Check out our upgraded site, ifsa.aero. Follow IFSA Facebook: International Flight Services Association Twitter: @IFSAOnBoard LinkedIn: International Flight Services Association
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GORE Aerospace Cables ®
Take off and stay
connected
Connectivity and In-Flight-Entertainment GORE® Aerospace High Speed Data Cables keep passengers connected anytime, anywhere while traveling. Ensure they get the ultimate in-flight experience on their laptop, tablet or mobile phone no matter where they sit on a plane.
GORE and designs are trademarks of W. L. Gore & Associates. © 2016 W. L. Gore & Associates GmbH
GO R E® Ass Micr emb owa ve/R lies F
GO R E™ Ant Leak enn y Fe as e de r
GO R E® Fibe Aero r Op spac tic C e able s
GO R E® USB Aero Cab spac e les
GO R E® Ethe Aero rne spac t Ca bles e
GO R E® HDM Aero I Ca spac bles e
Passengers can watch movies and videos in ultra high definition, charge devices quickly and easily, conduct business online faster, and stay connected to family and friends in real time.
What to look for in the months ahead
Coming Attractions *
12 Strong
Capt. Mitch Nelson and his US Special Forces team head to Afghanistan and develop an uneasy partnership with the Northern Alliance to take down the Taliban and its Al Qaeda allies. Outnumbered, Nelson and his soldiers face overwhelming odds in a fight against an enemy that takes no prisoners.
All the Money in the World W w
Director: Ridley Scott Cast: Michelle Williams, Mark Wahlberg, Christopher Plummer, Charlie Plummer, Timothy Hutton Rome, 1973. Oil magnate John Paul Getty’s favorite grandson, Paul, is kidnapped, but this is not reason enough for the billionaire to part with his fortune. Gail, Paul’s determined strong-willed mother, must struggle to save her son’s life after Getty refuses to pay the ransom. DISTRIBUTOR: ENTERTAINMENT IN MOTION CONTACT: LYNDA HARRISS
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Alpha
While on his first hunt with his tribe’s most elite group, a young man is injured and left for dead. He must learn to survive and navigate the harsh and unforgiving wilderness. After he reluctantly tames a lone wolf abandoned by its pack, the pair learn to rely on each other and become unlikely allies. DISTRIBUTOR: SONY PICTURES RELEASING CONTACT: RANA MATTHES * EXCLUDING CHINA, HONG KONG, MACAU, TAIWAN
DISTRIBUTION RIGHTS CODES
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DISTRIBUTOR: ENTERTAINMENT IN MOTION CONTACT: LYNDA HARRISS
* WORLDWIDE EXCLUDING CANADA AND BERMUDA
* OUTSIDE NORTH AMERICA
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Director: Albert Hughes Cast: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson
* EXCLUDING NORTH AMERICA AND UK
DISTRIBUTOR: WARNER BROS CONTACT: JEFF CRAWFORD
Au revoir là-haut
Director: Albert Dupontel Cast: Albert Dupontel, Laurent Lafitte, Niels Arestrup, Mélanie Thierry, Émilie Dequenne Shortly before the 1918 Armistice, Édouard Péricourt saves Albert Maillard’s life. Then a senseless attack issued by Lieutenant Pradelle shatters their lives. While Pradelle makes his fortune exploiting the dead, Péricourt and Maillard, who share only the experience of war and a hatred for Pradelle, devise their own monumental scam. DISTRIBUTOR: SKEYE CONTACT: ISABELLE BÉGIN * EXCLUDING FRANCE
N: NORTH AMERICA
I: OUTSIDE NORTH AMERICA
W: WORLDWIDE
PHOTOS: © 2017 WARNER BROS. ENT. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED; © 2017 ALL THE MONEY US, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED; © 2017 CTMG, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED; © JEROME-DREBOIS-ADBC-FILMS
Director: Nicolai Fuglsig Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Michael Shannon, Michael Peña, Trevante Rhodes, Austin Hebert, Ben O’Toole
PHOTOS: © 2017 ELECTRIC ENTERTAINMENT; © 2018 MARVEL; © HIROAKI SAMURA / KODANSHA © 2017 “BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL” FILM PARTNERS; © 2017 DOGWOOF; COURTESY OF PENNY BLACK MEDIA; COURTESY OF EMPHASIS VIDEO ENTERTAINMENT
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Bad Samaritan
Director: Dean Devlin Cast: David Tennant, Robert Sheehan, Carlito Olivero, Kerry Condon Two young car valets use their business as a front to burglarize houses of their unsuspecting patrons. Life is good for these petty thieves until they target the wrong house and stumble upon a woman being held captive, changing their lives forever. DISTRIBUTOR: JAGUAR DISTRIBUTION CONTACT: FRANCE CAPOR
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Black Panther
Director: Ryan Coogler Cast: Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman T’Challa returns home to the isolated, technologically advanced African nation of Wakanda to become king. But when a powerful old enemy reappears, T’Challa’s mettle as king – and Black Panther – is tested when he is drawn into a formidable conflict that puts the fate of Wakanda and the entire world at risk. DISTRIBUTOR: DISNEY STUDIOS NON-THEATRICAL CONTACT: MARTIN SANSING
Blade of the Immortal W
Director: Takashi Miike Cast: Takuya Kimura, Hana Sugisaki, Sôta Fukushi Manji, a highly skilled samurai, becomes cursed with immortality after a legendary battle. Haunted by the brutal murder of his sister, he fights against evil to regain his soul, and promises to help a young girl avenge her parents, who were killed by a group of master swordsmen led by ruthless warrior Anotsu. DISTRIBUTOR: TERRY STEINER INTERNATIONAL CONTACT: NADJA RUTKOWSKI * EXCLUDING JAPAN AND INDONESIA
Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story W
Director: Alexandra Dean Cast: Mel Brooks, Diane Kruger, Peter Bogdanovich Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr was known for her matchless beauty and electric screen persona, and less for the secret communication system she invented to help the Allies defeat the Nazis. Lamarr gave her patent to the navy, received no credit for her contributions and wound up impoverished in her later years.
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Chappaquiddick
Director: John Curran Cast: Jason Clarke, Kate Mara, Ed Helms, Bruce Dern, Jim Gaffigan Ted Kennedy’s life and political career derail in the aftermath of a fatal car accident in 1969 that claimed the life of a young campaign strategist, Mary Jo Kopechne. DISTRIBUTOR: PENNY BLACK MEDIA CONTACT: CATHIE TROTTA
Chasing the Dragon W
Directors: Jason Kwan, Wong Jing Cast: Donnie Yen, Andy Lau Crippled Ho, an illegal immigrant who sacrificed his right leg during a gang fight to save notorious police officer Lee Rock, becomes the most powerful drug lord in 1960s Hong Kong with the chief detective’s help. When an anti-corruption commission forces Rock to retire, however, Ho doesn’t want to quit the drug empire. DISTRIBUTOR: EMPHASIS VIDEO ENTERTAINMENT CONTACT: GIGI LEE
DISTRIBUTOR: JAGUAR DISTRIBUTION CONTACT: FRANCE CAPOR
* EXCLUDING CHINA
* EXCLUDING CANADA, UK, AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND, GERMAN-SPEAKING EUROPE, SCANDINAVIA AND ICELAND
DISTRIBUTION RIGHTS CODES
N: NORTH AMERICA
I: OUTSIDE NORTH AMERICA
W: WORLDWIDE
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The Commuter
Director: Jaume Collet-Serra Cast: Liam Neeson, Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Jonathan Banks, Elizabeth McGovern Insurance salesman Michael is on his daily commute home, which quickly becomes anything but routine. After being contacted by a mysterious stranger, Michael is forced to uncover the identity of a hidden passenger on the train before the last stop.
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Darkest Hour
Director: Joe Wright Cast: Gary Oldman, Lily James, Ben Mendelsohn, Kristin Scott Thomas Winston Churchill must face one of his most turbulent and defining trials: exploring a negotiated peace treaty with Nazi Germany, or standing firm to fight for the ideals, liberty and freedom of a nation. DISTRIBUTOR: NBCUNIVERSAL CONTACT: CYNTHIA KLAR
DISTRIBUTOR: PARAMOUNT PICTURES CONTACT: JOAN FILIPPINI
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The Death of Stalin
Director: Armando Iannucci Cast: Andrea Riseborough, Olga Kurylenko, Jeffrey Tambor, Jason Isaacs, Steve Buscemi, Rupert Friend On the night of March 2, 1953, Joseph Stalin is dying – and if the men surrounding him play their cards right, his job is theirs for the taking. The days before the funeral of the nation’s father are days that shine a sardonic light on all the madness, depravity and inhumanity of totalitarianism. DISTRIBUTOR: SKEYE CONTACT: ISABELLE BÉGIN
* EXCLUDING US
* EXCLUDING FRANCE
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Den of Thieves
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The Disaster Artist
Director: Christian Gudegast Cast: Gerard Butler, Pablo Schreiber, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Brian Van Holt, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson
Director: James Franco Cast: James Franco, Dave Franco, Seth Rogen, Alison Brie, Bryan Cranston, Josh Hutcherson
The intersecting and often personally connected lives of an elite unit of the LA County Sheriff’s Department and the state’s most successful bank robbery crew plan a seemingly impossible heist on the Federal Reserve Bank of downtown Los Angeles.
The story of aspiring filmmaker and Hollywood outsider Tommy Wiseau – an artist whose passion was as sincere as his methods were questionable. Based on the best-selling tell-all about the making of Wiseau’s cult-classic disasterpiece, The Room.
DISTRIBUTOR: ENTERTAINMENT IN MOTION CONTACT: LYNDA HARRISS
DISTRIBUTOR: WARNER BROS. CONTACT: JEFF CRAWFORD
DISTRIBUTION RIGHTS CODES
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Downsizing
Director: Alexander Payne Cast: Matt Damon, Christoph Waltz, Hong Chau, Kristen Wiig When scientists discover how to shrink humans to five inches tall as a solution to overpopulation, Paul and his wife, Audrey, decide to abandon their stressed lives, get small and move to a new downsized community. DISTRIBUTOR: PARAMOUNT PICTURES CONTACT: JOAN FILIPPINI
I: OUTSIDE NORTH AMERICA
W: WORLDWIDE
PHOTOS: © 2018 LIONSGATE; © JACK ENGLISH / FOCUS FEATURES; © JEROME-DREBOIS-ADBC-FILMS; © 2017 STXFILMS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED; © 2017 WARNER BROS. ENT. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED; © 2017 PARAMOUNT PICTURES
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all the
mone y wor l d IN THE
Early Man
Director: Nick Park Cast: Eddie Redmayne, Tom Hiddleston, Maisie Williams, Timothy Spall Set at the dawn of time, when prehistoric creatures and woolly mammoths roamed the Earth, Dug, along with sidekick Hognob, unites his tribe against mighty enemy Lord Nooth and his Bronze Age City to save their home. DISTRIBUTOR: PARAMOUNT PICTURES CONTACT: JOAN FILIPPINI * EXCLUDING US
Eric Clapton: A Life in 12 Bars I
Director: Lili Fini Zanuck Cast: Eric Clapton This documentary traces Clapton’s five-decade career. Through an extensive archive of performances and home movies, along with audio interviews of those who knew him best – George Harrison and Steve Winwood, among others – we learn what inspired the legendary musician and his unforgettable work. DISTRIBUTOR: JAGUAR DISTRIBUTION CONTACT: FRANCE CAPOR
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Extortion
Director: Phil Volken Cast: Eion Bailey, Bethany Joy Lenz, Barkhad Abdi, Danny Glover A boat joyride leaves a doctor, his wife and their five-year-old son stranded on an island in the Bahamas. Two local anglers agree to help, but demand $1 million. The doctor finds himself in a desperate race against the clock to track the kidnappers and rescue his family. DISTRIBUTOR: PICTUREWORKS CONTACT: AVINAASH JUMANI * EXCLUDING US AND CANADA
* EXCLUDING UK
*
A Fantastic Woman
Director: Sebastián Lelio Cast: Daniela Vega, Francisco Reyes Marina, a waitress and singer, and Orlando, an older man, are in love and planning for the future. After Orlando suddenly falls ill and dies, Marina is forced to confront Orlando’s family and society, and to fight again to show them who she is: complex, strong, forthright, fantastic. DISTRIBUTOR: SONY PICTURES RELEASING CONTACT: RANA MATTHES
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Father Figures
Director: Carlos Saldanha Cast: Gabriel Iglesias, Kate McKinnon, Bobby Cannavale, John Cena, David Tennant
Two brothers, whose eccentric mother raised them to believe their father died when they were young, discover this to be a lie. So, they set out to find their real father, and learn more about their mother than they probably ever wanted to know.
Little bull Ferdinand prefers sitting quietly under a tree just smelling the flowers, rather than snorting and butting heads with the other bulls. As Ferdinand grows big and strong, his temperament remains mellow, but one day, five men come to choose the “biggest, fastest and roughest bull” for the bullfights in Madrid, and Ferdinand is mistakenly chosen.
DISTRIBUTOR: WARNER BROS. CONTACT: JEFF CRAWFORD
DISTRIBUTION RIGHTS CODES
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Ferdinand
Director: Lawrence Sher Cast: Ed Helms, Owen Wilson, Ving Rhames, J.K. Simmons, Terry Bradshaw, Glenn Close
* AUSTRALIA, BAHAMAS, BERMUDA, FRENCH POLYNESIA, NEW ZEALAND, SABA, ST. EUSTATIUS, ST. KITTS-NEVIS, ST. MAARTEN, US, AND WALLIS AND FUTUNA
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DISTRIBUTOR: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX CONTACT: JULIAN LEVIN
N: NORTH AMERICA
I: OUTSIDE NORTH AMERICA
W: WORLDWIDE
PHOTOS: © 2018 ENTERTAINMENT ONE; © 2017 ALTITUDE FILMS; COURTESY OF PICTUREWORKS; © 2017 WARNER BROS. ENT. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED; © 2017 TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX FILM CORP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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Finding Your Feet
Director: Richard Loncraine Cast: Imelda Staunton, Timothy Spall, Celia Imrie, Joanna Lumley When “Lady” Sandra Abbott discovers her husband of 40 years is having an affair with her best friend, she seeks refuge with her estranged older sister, Bif, an outspoken, serial-dating free spirit. The two couldn’t be more different. Bif drags her along to her dance class, where Sandra gradually finds her feet – and romance.
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Les grands esprits
Director: Olivier Ayache-Vidal Cast: Denis Podalydès, Léa Drucker François, a teacher at a prestigious high school, enjoys life in the intellectual and bourgeois society of Paris. Trapped in a situation where he’s forced to accept a job in a tough, underprivileged suburb, he must confront his own limits, as well as the upheaval of his values and certainties. DISTRIBUTOR: O’BRIEN INTERNATIONAL CONTACT: JACQUELINE BRIENS
DISTRIBUTOR: JAGUAR DISTRIBUTION CONTACT: FRANCE CAPOR * EXCLUDING US
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The Greatest Showman W
Director: Michael Gracey Cast: Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron, Michelle Williams, Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya The Greatest Showman is a bold and original musical that celebrates the birth of show business and the sense of wonder we feel when dreams come to life. Inspired by the ambition and imagination of P.T. Barnum, the film tells the story of a visionary who rose from nothing to create a mesmerizing spectacle that became a worldwide sensation. DISTRIBUTOR: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX CONTACT: JULIAN LEVIN
Human Flow
Director: Ai Weiwei Cast: Israa Abboud, Hiba Abed, Rami Abu Sondos Over 65 million people worldwide have been forced from their homes to escape famine, climate change and war in the greatest human displacement since World War II. This documentary by renowned artist Ai Weiwei elucidates both the staggering scale of the refugee crisis and its personal human impact. DISTRIBUTOR: TERRY STEINER INTERNATIONAL CONTACT: NADJA RUTKOWSKI
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Incredibles 2
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Isle of Dogs
Director: Brad Bird Cast: Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Sarah Vowell, Huck Milner, Samuel L. Jackson
Director: Wes Anderson Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Greta Gerwig, Jeff Goldblum, Bryan Cranston, Tilda Swinton, Kara Hayward
Helen is in the spotlight, while Bob navigates the day-to-day heroics of “normal” life at home, when a new villain hatches a brilliant and dangerous plot that only the Incredibles can overcome together.
Set in Japan, Isle of Dogs follows a boy’s odyssey in search of his dog. DISTRIBUTOR: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX CONTACT: JULIAN LEVIN
DISTRIBUTOR: DISNEY STUDIOS NON-THEATRICAL CONTACT: MARTIN SANSING
* EXCLUDING US, CHINA AND HONG KONG
DISTRIBUTION RIGHTS CODES
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I: OUTSIDE NORTH AMERICA
W: WORLDWIDE
PHOTOS: © 2017 PROTAGONIST FILMS; © QUANTRELL D. COLBERT / UNIVERSAL PICTURES; © 2017 TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX FILM CORP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED; © IDOMENI CAMP, GREECE. 2016/03/18 COURTESY OF AMAZON STUDIOS; © 2018 DISNEY/PIXAR; © 2018 TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX FILM CORP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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NON-THEATRICAL SALES
JEFF CRAWFORD jeff.crawford@warnerbros.com
ANGELICA MCCOY angelica.mccoy@warnerbros.com
wbnts.warnerbros.com
© 2018 Warner Bros. Pictures. All rights reserved.
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Jane
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Jalouse
Directors: David Foenkinos, Stéphane Foenkinos Cast: Karin Viard, Thibault de Montalembert, Anne Dorval, Bruno Todeschini
Nathalie, a middle-aged divorced university professor, experiences an unexpected midlife crisis, causing her to become irrepressibly jealous of everyone close to her. Entangled in conflicted emotions, Nathalie needs to navigate through her crisis before she damages all of her relationships forever.
Drawing from more than 100 hours of never-before-seen footage from the National Geographic archives, awardwinning director Brett Morgen tells the story of Jane Goodall, whose chimpanzee research challenged the scientific consensus of her time and revolutionized our understanding of the natural world. DISTRIBUTOR: FNG NON-THEATRICAL LICENSING CONTACT: MICHAEL GARRITY
DISTRIBUTOR: PENNY BLACK MEDIA CONTACT: CATHIE TROTTA * EXCLUDING NORTH AMERICA AND FRANCE
Just Getting Started W
Director: Ron Shelton Cast: Morgan Freeman, Tommy Lee Jones, Rene Russo Duke Diver is living the high life as the freewheeling manager of a luxurious resort in Palm Springs, California. He soon faces competition from Leo, a former military man who likes the same woman whom Duke is interested in. DISTRIBUTOR: PARAMOUNT PICTURES CONTACT: JOAN FILIPPINI * EXCLUDING US
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Director: Wayne Roberts Cast: Olivia Cooke, Christopher Abbott, Mireille Enos, Mary Steenburgen, Jim Belushi, Chris Lowell A young waitress in the American Southwest dreams of a new life in San Francisco. After she falls in love with an ex-convict, the fragile harmony of her world is thrown into jeopardy as she finds her spirit and determination challenged by those she loves most.
experience
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Kodachrome
Director: Mark Raso Cast: Jason Sudeikis, Ed Harris, Elizabeth Olsen, Bruce Greenwood Set during the final days of the admired photo development system known as Kodachrome, the film follows the journey of a father and son who hit the road to reach the Kansas photo lab before it closes its doors for good. DISTRIBUTOR: PENNY BLACK MEDIA CONTACT: CATHIE TROTTA
DISTRIBUTOR: ENCORE INFLIGHT ENTERTAINMENT CONTACT: EDWIN CHEUNG * EXCLUDING NORTH AMERICA
DISTRIBUTION RIGHTS CODES
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Katie Says Goodbye
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I: OUTSIDE NORTH AMERICA
W: WORLDWIDE
PHOTOS: COURTESY OF PENNY BLACK MEDIA; © 2017 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC PARTNERS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED; © 2017 SIERRA AFFINITY; © CATHERINE KANAVY; COURTESY OF PENNY BLACK MEDIA
Director: Brett Morgen Cast: Jane Goodall, Hugo van Lawick
Lady Bird
Director: Greta Gerwig Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Tracy Letts, Lucas Hedges, Timothée Chalamet, Beanie Feldstein Sacramento, California, 2002. In an affecting look at the relationships that shape us, the beliefs that define us, and the unmatched beauty of a place called home, the turbulent bond between a mother and her teenage daughter unravels amid a rapidly shifting American economic landscape. DISTRIBUTOR: ENTERTAINMENT IN MOTION CONTACT: LYNDA HARRISS
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Last Flag Flying
Director: Richard Linklater Cast: Bryan Cranston, Laurence Fishburne, Steve Carell
*
The Leisure Seeker
Director: Paolo Virzì Cast: Helen Mirren, Donald Sutherland
Thirty years after they served in the Vietnam War, Larry “Doc” Shepherd reunites with Sal and Mueller, but this time on a different mission: to bury Doc’s son, a young marine killed in the Iraq War. Along the way, the three men reminisce and come to terms with memories of the war that continue to shape their lives.
A runaway couple goes on an unforgettable journey in the faithful old RV they call “the Leisure Seeker,” traveling from Boston to the Ernest Hemingway Home in Key West. They recapture their passion for life and their love for each other on a road trip that provides revelation and surprise right up to the very end.
DISTRIBUTOR: TERRY STEINER INTERNATIONAL CONTACT: NADJA RUTKOWSKI
DISTRIBUTOR: SONY PICTURES RELEASING CONTACT: RANA MATTHES * US ONLY
The Liquidator
Director: Xu Jizhou Cast: Deng Chao, Ethan Ruan, Liu Shishi, Karena Lam A series of gruesome murders takes the city by storm. The victims are subjects of recent media controversies in which their apathetic, selfish wrongdoings cause the deaths of others. The media labels the killings an act of vigilante justice, and the whole town becomes enthralled. DISTRIBUTOR: ENCORE INFLIGHT ENTERTAINMENT CONTACT: EDWIN CHEUNG
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Love Education
Director: Sylvia Chang Cast: Sylvia Chang, Lang Yueting, Tian Zhuangzhuang, Estelle Wu, Song Ningfeng
* EXCLUDING MAINLAND CHINA
Hui Ying intends to relocate her father’s grave to be next to her mother’s, but the decision sparks a conflict with Nana, her father’s first wife – with Hui Ying’s daughter, Weiwei, caught in the middle. The three women then follow their hearts and make their own decisions, resulting in an unexpected ending. DISTRIBUTOR: EMPHASIS VIDEO ENTERTAINMENT CONTACT: GIGI LEE
DISTRIBUTION RIGHTS CODES
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I: OUTSIDE NORTH AMERICA
W: WORLDWIDE
PHOTOS: © 2017 A24 FILMS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED; © AMAZON STUDIOS; COURTESY OF SONY PICTURES CLASSICS; © 2017 EDKO FILMS LTD.; COURTESY OF EMPHASIS VIDEO ENTERTAINMENT
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QUALITY, INDEPENDENT FEATURE FILMS WWW.PENNYBLACKMEDIA.COM
CTROTTA@PENNYBLACKMEDIA.COM
The Post
Love, Simon
Director: Greg Berlanti Cast: Nick Robinson, Jennifer Garner, Katherine Langford, Alexandra Shipp, Logan Miller, Clarke Moore
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Love Thy Nature
Director: Sylvie Rokab Cast: Liam Neeson
Love Thy Nature points to how deeply we’ve lost touch with nature and takes viewers on a cinematic journey through the beauty and intimacy of our relationship with the natural world. The film shows that a renewed connection with nature is key to both good health and solving our environmental and climate crises.
Everyone deserves a great love story. But for Simon it’s complicated: no one knows he’s gay and he doesn’t know who the anonymous classmate is that he’s fallen for online. Resolving both issues proves hilarious, scary and life changing. DISTRIBUTOR: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX CONTACT: JULIAN LEVIN
DISTRIBUTOR: SKEYE CONTACT: ISABELLE BÉGIN
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Loveless
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Director: Andrey Zvyagintsev Cast: Maryana Spivak, Aleksey Rozin, Matvei Novikov, Marina Vasilyeva, Andris Keiss, Aleksey Fateev Zhenya and Boris are going through a vicious divorce marked by resentment, frustration and recriminations. Each is eager to turn the page on their relationship, even if it means threatening to abandon their 12-year-old son, Alyosha – that is, until, after witnessing one of their fights, Alyosha disappears. DISTRIBUTOR: ENCORE INFLIGHT ENTERTAINMENT CONTACT: EDWIN CHEUNG
Lucky
Director: John Carroll Lynch Cast: Harry Dean Stanton, David Lynch, Ron Livingston, Ed Begley Jr. Lucky, a 90-year-old atheist, lives in an off-the-map desert town with a slew of quirky characters. Having outlived and out-smoked all of his contemporaries, he finds himself at the precipice of life, thrust into a journey of self-exploration, leading toward that which is so often unattainable: enlightenment. DISTRIBUTOR: PICTUREWORKS CONTACT: AVINAASH JUMANI * EXCLUDING UK AND CANADA
* EXCLUDING CIS, FRANCE, AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND
Marry Me, Dude (Epouse-moi mon pote) W
Director: Tarek Boudali Cast: Tarek Boudali, Philippe Lacheau, Charlotte Gabris, Andy, David Marsais, Julien Arruti Yassine’s future studying architecture in Paris seems assured, until he fails his exams. He decides to marry his best friend, Fred, to get immigration papers. But a suspicious inspector is determined to uncover their fake wedding. And when Yassine’s mother and Claire, his love, turn up unannounced, his plan starts to fall apart. DISTRIBUTOR: PICTUREWORKS CONTACT: AVINAASH JUMANI * EXCLUDING FRANCE, US, CANADA, BELGIUM, NETHERLANDS AND LUXEMBURG
DISTRIBUTION RIGHTS CODES
102 102 experience
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I: OUTSIDE NORTH AMERICA
W: WORLDWIDE
PHOTOS: COURTESY OF SKEYE; © 2018 TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX FILM CORP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED; © 2017 NON-STOP PRODUCTION – WHY NOT PRODUCTIONS; COURTESY OF PICTUREWORKS; COURTESY OF PICTUREWORKS
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Imagination takes flight.
AVAILABLE MAY 2018
MADEMOISELLE PARADIS
100% Rotten Tomatoes “An inquisitive, curious and gorgeously accoutered period piece.” The Hollywood Reporter.
German Language - WW Rights Available SKYLINE IFE www.skyline-ife.com +44 1449 711011 RICHARD BARSBY richard.barsby@skyline-ife.com LORRAINE LEECH lorraine.leech@skyline-ife.com DENA BLAKEMAN dena.blakeman@skyline-ife.com
Maze Runner: The Death Cure
PHOTOS: © 2018 TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX FILM CORP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED; © 2017 “MIXED DOUBLES” FILM PARTNERS; © 2017 STXFILMS; COURTESY OF PENNY BLACK MEDIA; COURTESY OF PICTUREWORKS
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Director: Wes Ball Cast: Dylan O’Brien, Katherine McNamara, Kaya Scodelario, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Giancarlo Esposito, Barry Pepper In the third installment of the Maze Runner film series, young hero Thomas embarks on a dangerous mission to find a cure for the deadly virus known as the Flare, which turns people into rampaging zombies. DISTRIBUTOR: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX CONTACT: JULIAN LEVIN
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Mixed Doubles
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Molly’s Game
Director: Junichi Ishikawa Cast: Yui Aragaki, Eita, Ryoko Hirosue, Yu Aoi
Director: Aaron Sorkin Cast: Jessica Chastain, Idris Elba, Kevin Costner
After breaking up with her boyfriend, Tamako picks up table tennis at a club formerly run by her late mother. When Tamako sees her ex with a new girl as his mixed doubles partner, she enters the National Championship with former pro boxer Hagiwara to compete against them.
The true story of Molly Bloom, a beautiful, young Olympic skier who ran the world’s most exclusive high-stakes poker game for a decade before being arrested in the middle of the night by 17 FBI agents wielding automatic weapons.
DISTRIBUTOR: EMPHASIS VIDEO ENTERTAINMENT CONTACT: GIGI LEE
DISTRIBUTOR: PARAMOUNT PICTURES CONTACT: JOAN FILIPPINI * EXCLUDING US
* EXCLUDING JAPAN
Paddington 2
Director: Paul King Cast: Ben Whishaw, Hugh Grant, Sally Hawkins, Brendan Gleeson, Hugh Bonneville, Julie Walters Paddington, now happily settled with the Brown family and a popular member of the local community, picks up a series of odd jobs to buy the perfect present for his aunt Lucy’s 100th birthday, only for the gift to be stolen.
W
Permanent
Director: Colette Burson Cast: Patricia Arquette, Rainn Wilson, Kira McLean
DISTRIBUTOR: PENNY BLACK MEDIA CONTACT: CATHIE TROTTA
It’s 1982, and the Dicksons move to a southern town where girls long for Farrah Fawcett-type curls. When Aurelie begs her parents for a perm, they take her to a beauty school instead of a salon. A student-beautician destroys Aurelie’s hair, leaving her to be yet another gawky teenager trying to navigate junior high. DISTRIBUTOR: PICTUREWORKS CONTACT: AVINAASH JUMANI * EXCLUDING CANADA
DISTRIBUTION RIGHTS CODES
N: NORTH AMERICA
I: OUTSIDE NORTH AMERICA
W: WORLDWIDE
APEX.AERO | V8 E1 |
experience
105
all the
mone y wor l d
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Peter Rabbit
Director: Will Gluck Cast: Rose Byrne, Domhnall Gleeson, Sam Neill, Daisy Ridley, Elizabeth Debicki, Margot Robbie Peter Rabbit, the mischievous and adventurous hero that has captivated generations of readers, stars in his own irreverent, contemporary comedy with attitude. Peter’s feud with Mr. McGregor escalates further than ever before as they rival for the affections of the warmhearted animal lover who lives next door.
W
Phantom Thread
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lesley Manville, Vicky Krieps
The life behind the curtain of an uncompromising dressmaker commissioned by royalty and high society unravels against the backdrop of the couture world of 1950s London. DISTRIBUTOR: NBCUNIVERSAL CONTACT: CYNTHIA KLAR
DISTRIBUTOR: SONY PICTURES RELEASING CONTACT: RANA MATTHES
W
Pitch Perfect 3
*
The Post
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Director: Trish Sie Cast: Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Hailee Steinfeld, Brittany Snow, Anna Camp, Elizabeth Banks
Director: Steven Spielberg Cast: Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Alison Brie, Carrie Coon, Bruce Greenwood, Sarah Paulson
After the highs of winning the World Championships, the Bellas find themselves split apart and discovering there aren’t many job prospects for singing. But when they get the chance to reunite for an overseas USO tour, the group come together to make some music, and some questionable decisions, one last time.
A thrilling drama about the unlikely partnership between the Washington Post’s publisher Katharine Graham and editor Ben Bradlee as they race to catch up with the New York Times to expose a massive coverup of government secrets that spanned three decades and four US presidents.
DISTRIBUTOR: NBCUNIVERSAL CONTACT: CYNTHIA KLAR
Director: Babak Najafi Cast: Taraji P. Henson, Billy Brown, Jahi Di’Allo Winston, Danny Glover Mary is an assassin working for an organized crime family in Boston. Her life is completely turned around when she meets a young boy whose path she crosses when a professional hit goes bad. DISTRIBUTOR: SONY PICTURES RELEASING CONTACT: RANA MATTHES
DISTRIBUTOR: ENTERTAINMENT IN MOTION CONTACT: LYNDA HARRISS *MIDDLE EAST, AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND, SOUTH AFRICA, AND SELECTED EUROPEAN AND ASIAN TERRITORIES
DISTRIBUTION RIGHTS CODES
106 106 experience
Proud Mary
| V8 E1 | APEX.AERO
N: NORTH AMERICA
I: OUTSIDE NORTH AMERICA
W: WORLDWIDE
PHOTOS: © 2017 CTMG, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED; © LAURIE SPARHAM / FOCUS FEATURES; © QUANTRELL D. COLBERT / UNIVERSAL PICTURES; © 2017 AMBLIN PARTNERS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED; © 2017 CTMG, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
IN THE
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The spirit of competition Let your passengers discover the interesting games, contests and sports celebrated around the world with Need to Compete. It’s just one of the many fascinating documentaries that DW Transtel has to offer.
Deutsche Welle | 53110 Bonn | Germany ife @ dw.com
dw.com
Sakura Guardian in the North
Director: Kwak Kyung-taek Cast: Kim Rae-won, Kim Hae-sook
Director: Yōjirō Takita Cast: Sayuri Yoshinaga, Masato Sakai, Ryoko Shinohara, Hiroshi Abe, Koichi Sato
Prosecutor Jin-hong is intent on catching the culprit who killed his mother seven years ago. But when his mother comes back to life, along with victims of other unsolved murders to punish their killers, Jin-hong becomes the prime suspect in her murder. To prove his innocence, he must uncover the truth. DISTRIBUTOR: EMPHASIS VIDEO ENTERTAINMENT CONTACT: GIGI LEE
W
Returning to Japan from the US after 15 years, Shujiro Ezure finds his elderly mother, Tetsu, living alone in poverty, and still suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after having lost her husband and older son in World War II. Shujiro decides to take his mother to Sapporo to care for her there. DISTRIBUTOR: ENCORE INFLIGHT ENTERTAINMENT CONTACT: EDWIN CHEUNG
* EXCLUDING KOREA AND JAPAN
W
Le Sens de la fête
Directors: Eric Toledano, Olivier Nakache Cast: Jean-Pierre Bacri, Jean-Paul Rouve, Gilles Lellouche, Vincent Macaigne, Eye Haidara, Suzanne Clément See a hectic wedding party through the eyes of the people working on it: Max, who has run a catering company for 30 years, and his team of servers, cooks and dishwashers. DISTRIBUTOR: SKEYE CONTACT: ISABELLE BÉGIN * EXCLUDING FRANCE
* EXCLUDING JAPAN
W
The Solar System
Directors: Bacha Caravedo, Chinón Higashionna Cast: Adriana Ugarte, Gisela Ponce de León, César Ritter, Javier Valdés It’s Christmas Eve and the del Solar family are getting together for the first time in over two years. When Leonardo turns up on the doorstep of his old house to be reunited with his two children and grandson, the get-together becomes the scene for accusations, revelations and perhaps even a reconciliation.
*
The Square
Director: Ruben Östlund Cast: Elisabeth Moss, Claes Bang, Dominic West
DISTRIBUTOR: ENCORE INFLIGHT ENTERTAINMENT CONTACT: EDWIN CHEUNG * EXCLUDING SPAIN AND PERU
Christian, who is charitable and drives an electric car, is the curator of an art museum. When his next installation, “The Square,” invites passersby to altruism, reminding them of their role as responsible fellow human beings, the response is overblown, sending both Christian and the museum into an existential crisis. DISTRIBUTOR: TERRY STEINER INTERNATIONAL CONTACT: NADJA RUTKOWSKI * US ONLY
DISTRIBUTION RIGHTS CODES
108 108 experience
| V8 E1 | APEX.AERO
N: NORTH AMERICA
I: OUTSIDE NORTH AMERICA
W: WORLDWIDE
PHOTOS: COURTESY OF EMPHASIS VIDEO ENTERTAINMENT; © 2018 “SAKURA GUARDIAN IN THE NORTH” PRODUCTION COMMITTEE; © THIBAULT GRABHERR 2017 QUAD+TEN / TEN FILMS / GAUMONT / TF1 FILMS PRODUCTION / PANACHE PRODUCTIONS / LA COMPAGNIE CINEMATOGRAPHIQUE; COURTESY OF ENCORE INFLIGHT ENTERTAINMENT; © MAGNOLIA PICTURES
RV: Resurrected Victims W
erosnow.com
YOUR FAVOURITE BOLLYWOOD BLOCKBUSTERS ON THE FLY!
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Why limit your entertainment options when all you need is one app. Eros Now offers the largest Bollywood and regional film library so you can stay entertained anywhere, anytime. HD PLAYBACK
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For Inquiries Contact | PRASHANT GAONKAR | Direct: +91 22 66021514 | Mobile: +91 9920053480 | Email: prashant.gaonkar@erosintl.com
The Post
Voice From the Stone W
Star Wars: The Last Jedi PHOTOS: © 2018 & TM LUCASFILM LTD.; COURTESY OF PICTUREWORKS; © 2017 BLOOM MEDIA; © AMAZON STUDIOS. CREDIT: JESSICA MIGLIO; © 2018 DISNEY ENTERPRISES, INC.
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Director: Rian Johnson Cast: Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega
Director: Eric D. Howell Cast: Emilia Clarke, Marton Csokas, Caterina Murino, Remo Girone, Lisa Gastoni The Skywalker saga continues as the heroes of The Force Awakens join the galactic legends in an epic adventure that unlocks age-old mysteries of the Force and shocking revelations of the past. DISTRIBUTOR: DISNEY STUDIOS NON-THEATRICAL CONTACT: MARTIN SANSING
Verena is a determined young nurse who is hired to help a mute young heir. But the more she observes him, the more Verena becomes convinced he has fallen under the spell of a powerful and otherworldly persona trapped in the villa’s stone walls – one that seems to be rapidly entwining with her own. DISTRIBUTOR: PICTUREWORKS CONTACT: AVINAASH JUMANI * EXCLUDING US AND CANADA
I
What They Had
Director: Elizabeth Chomko Cast: Hilary Swank, Michael Shannon, Blythe Danner, Robert Forster, Taissa Farmiga Bridget returns home to Chicago at her brother’s urging to deal with her mother’s Alzheimer’s and her father’s reluctance to let go of their life together. DISTRIBUTOR: JAGUAR DISTRIBUTION CONTACT: FRANCE CAPOR
*
Wonder Wheel
Director: Woody Allen Cast: Kate Winslet, Justin Timberlake, Steve Schirripa, Tony Sirico, Juno Temple Four characters’ lives intertwine amid the hustle and bustle of the Coney Island amusement park in the 1950s. DISTRIBUTOR: TERRY STEINER INTERNATIONAL CONTACT: NADJA RUTKOWSKI * US ONLY
W
A Wrinkle in Time
Director: Ava DuVernay Cast: Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Michael Peña In this epic adventure based on Madeleine L’Engle’s timeless classic A Wrinkle in Time, which travels across dimensions of time and space, one girl’s transformative journey, led by three celestial guides, uncovers that strength comes from embracing one’s individuality. DISTRIBUTOR: DISNEY STUDIOS NON-THEATRICAL CONTACT: MARTIN SANSING
DISTRIBUTION RIGHTS CODES
N: NORTH AMERICA
I: OUTSIDE NORTH AMERICA
W: WORLDWIDE
APEX.AERO | V8 E1 |
experience
111
SKYfi club – Your mobile theatre Staying in touch and streaming content via smartphones, tablets and laptops are now top wishes for air travellers. And SKYfi is one of the most advanced and cost-effective ways to meet these demands – for satisfied passengers who keep coming back. Plus, SKYfi club lets you create personalised entertainment and information programmes streamed directly to passengers’ devices – for the ultimate in in-flight customisation.
KID-Systeme GmbH Lüneburger Schanze 30, D-21614 Buxtehude Phone +49 40 743 716 33 Fax +49 40 743 838 29 E-Mail info@kid-systeme.com
www.kid-systeme.com
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@bluflr A Lufthansa Boeing 747 seconds from touching down at Toronto Pearson International.
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APEX.AERO | V8 E1 |
experience
113
There was a time when smartphones weren’t smart, and you still dialed a call. Connectivity meant that you knew how to hook up a turntable and a cassette deck to the stereo, and bandwidth was the size of the elastic in your sweat pants. Then, in the 1980s, personal computers and mobile cellular phones disrupted the tech
Guess Where I’m Calling From? Despite its brief stint in the cabin, Airfone has left a lasting impression on the public imagination. BY HOWARD SLUTSKEN
114
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landscape, and airline passengers started seeing Airfone handsets in the cabin. The pioneering air-to-ground telephony technology first appeared on cabin bulkheads. Passengers had to go to the Airfone unit, swipe a credit card and have it validated for payment, then take the handset back to their seat to make a call. “Prior to that, the only individuals who were able to talk to anyone on the ground were the pilot and copilot,” says John Courtright, who managed United Airlines’ Airfone service as its in-flight entertainment and connectivity manager from 1978 to 1987. About eight passengers on each aircraft flying over the continental US on United could make a call simultaneously. Eventually, there was one handset per seat group in economy, and one for each firstand business-class seat. But even Courtright admits the cost of a call was “ridiculously expensive,” at $2 or more per minute. “We were targeting the business person who needed to communicate an urgent item or coordinate a meeting or travel arrangements,” he explains.
Some passengers used Airfone for the novelty of being able to make a quick airborne call and say “Guess where I’m calling you from?” while others conducted lengthy conversations. “There were a number of individual calls that lasted 20, 30 or even 40 minutes, at three bucks a minute,” Courtright says. With low passenger use and high capital and operational costs, the business case for Airfone was marginal. But as the service matured, applications were being developed for data communication links. “It was on track to being cash-flow positive, combining equipment sales and a very nascent data network capability,” says Courtright, now director of Sales and Marketing for Structural Integrity Engineering. But after flying on a host of airlines, the Airfone service faded away in the first decade of the 2000s, as cell phone availability and usage increased dramatically on the ground. Nonetheless, Courtright insists he is “quite proud of the fact that I helped pioneer connectivity to passengers on airplanes.”
PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
THROWBACK
WE are a team of industry veterans, IFE production experts and creatives who have come together to form an exceptional full service Lab, CSP and local creative agency. WE are a team you can trust.
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Panasonic Avionics Corporation
HEATHER FINDS HER ZEN AT 30,000 FEET For many passengers, air travel is stressful and uncomfortable – but it doesn’t have to be. HD-Audio™ provides your passengers with active noise cancellation, so the only “Om” they hear is their own. © 2017 Panasonic Avionics Corporation. All Rights Reserved. 18496305
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