Crystal Cabin Awards 2010

A round-up of all the winners and runners up from this year's Crystal Cabin Awards

Passenger comfort

Winner: Dasell Cabin Interior – High-integrated flexible lavatory (HILA)

The lavatory is based on a flexible space concept to offer greater room, convenience, comfort and hygiene than a traditional lavatory compartment. During boarding, the lavatory is compacted to the size of a standard lavatory. However, when the aircraft has reached cruising altitude, the cabin crew will enlarge the lavatory, which is done swiftly in a few steps. The lavatory then provides extra space and additional amenities such as a urinal or changing room facilities. The extra space is taken from the cross-aisle area near the main door, which is only used during boarding but not during flight. HILA has been developed and produced as a fully functional prototype by Dasell Cabin Interior together with Airbus Operations and in cooperation with iDS Hamburg.

Runners up:

• James Park Associates and Sicma Aero Seat – Cirrus business-class suite in a reverse herringbone design
• L&L Products – embedded acoustic solution

Industrial design/interior concept

Winner: Teague – Integrated Smart Monitor

Developed by Teague in collaboration with Weber Aircraft and Panasonic, the Integrated Smart Monitor is an ultra-slimline, lightweight seat with a fully integrated touchscreen IFE system. The in-seat monitor and passenger seat were purposefully designed with one another other in mind. The design inaugurates Panasonic’s Eco Series Smart Monitor architecture, which is designed to reduce monitor power consumption, heat generation and weight while at the same time improving passenger usability. In addition, the design of the monitor eliminates the need for excess seat peripherals by incorporating all functionality and navigation into the monitor. On-screen navigation, reading light and volume controls, flight attendant call, USB port and audio jack are incorporated into the IFE monitor and illuminate when needed through the use of proximity sensor, ensuring a streamlined entertainment experience.

Runners up:

• B/E Aerospace in cooperation with Priestmangoode – Staggered premium-class suite concept
• Teague – Boeing SkyLoft concept

Greener cabin, health and safety

Winner: Norduyn – Innovative Lightweight Trolley

Together with LSG Sky Chefs, Norduyn from Montreal, Canada, developed a new type of aviation trolley entirely made of composites, designed to be significantly lighter, better insulated, sturdier, easy to track and trace and comprising up to 45% fewer parts than legacy aluminium-frame trolleys. The trolley is made of a single‐body shell with top and wheel‐base attachments. All screw inserts are moulded into the structure of the trolley. The companies say the weight reduction enables measurable fuel savings – for example, a single B747 fully-loaded with the trolleys would be carrying approximately 850kg less weight, which amounts to savings of about €80,000 (£68,271) in fuel and 13,600 tons of CO2 emissions over a year’s time.

Runners up:

•  B&W Engineering – TempAccu temperature accumulator
•  Lantal Textiles – Climatex LifeguardFR seat cover fabric

Material and components

Winner: Airbus – Digital Cabin Logbook

The Digital Cabin Logbook (DCL) is one step towards e-cabin operation enabled by the evolution of IT technologies on the ground and on board. One of the main advantages of DCL is its standardised cabin defect reporting. The cabin crew selects cabin defects from a standard defect catalogue, which is customised according to cabin configuration. On selecting the location of a cabin defect, the user is guided via a graphical user interface. The usage of the web-based DCL application is designed to be very convenient for cabin crew. The selected and stored standardised defect reports can be submitted to the ground while the aircraft is still flying. This improves dispatch reliability because the logistics for repair can start before landing and thus delays can be avoided.

Runners up:

•  C2 Composites – business-class meal table
•  Diehl Aircabin – powder coating of cabin interior parts

Entertainment and communication

Winner: Lumexis Corporation – Fiber-To-The-Screen

Lumexis’s Fiber-To-The-Screen (FTTS) system is the first fully fibre-optic based IFE system. The seat box and half of the other boxes required by legacy systems are eliminated. The system provides huge bandwidth to each seat for future functionality to be added over the 30-year life of the aircraft. Lumexis says that FTTS can reduce the weight and cost of ownership by half. The company was able to expand all network channels to a 1Gbps bandwidth while eliminating any possibility of radiated interference with aircraft systems. Defying many sceptics, the fibre optic cabling came through without a scratch or in-line break during its first flight on US Airways’ A320. On the contrary, it proved exceptionally durable in operation by standard cabin crews and maintenance personnel. Lumexis has just announced its launch customer for the system – Dubai-based low-cost carrier flydubai.

Runners up:

•  QEST – KuStream 1000
•  TriaGnoSys – VoCeM

University

Winner: FH Hannover – Com.pax seat concept

The new university category generated great excitement. The trophy – and €5,000 in prize money – went to a graduate of the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Hanover. Esther Gläsker’s Com.pax system is a 2-in-1 seat concept designed to offer a more comfortable way of travelling for disabled passengers, and greater flexibility for airlines and flight attendants. The mobile aircraft seat is positioned at the check-in counter for the passenger. It is then rolled to the base element within the aircraft and clicked into the lock position (with a safety catch mechanism). The design is comfortable, sleek, and easy to manoeuvre. The mobile aircraft seat can be released from its base via a button, so that the passenger can roll freely through the small aisle to the lavatories. The idea is that the passenger could remain in the same seat for the duration of the airline experience. Gläsker, 26, is from Hanover, and designed the seat last year as part of her degree before graduating with a design Diploma. She hopes her win could interest an interiors seating company to invest in the development needed to bring the concept to a prototype stage.

Runners up:
•  TU München – Nested cabin concept
•  TU München – Time economy-class chair

Judges' commendation prize

Winner: Bishop – 1cm seat rail

The 1cm seat rail is the world’s first metric seat rail designed with a distance of 1cm between two consecutive attachment holes on the seat track. Bishop says its seat rail offers many advantages to airlines in comparison to the conventional 1in (2.54cm) rail – including a 5% weight reduction, better visual appearance, improved revenue due to extra seat rows, greater (more than double) accuracy in installing seats and other elements, reduced vibrations and along with that reduced maintenance. Using adaptive plates, old and corroded standard seat rails can be updated and existing aircraft can be retrofitted.

Runners up:
•  TU München – Airborne Combfort honeycombed cabins for the aircraft fuselage
•  TU München – Modulair System, based on the idea that boarding takes place inside the airport