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Jonathan Norris provides an update on the SPICE galley concept

Jonathan Norris, vice president of cabin design at Airbus Operations, provides an update on the SPICE galley concept

Can you summarise the SPICE galley’s development since last year’s Aircraft Interiors Expo (AIX 2008)?

Since AIX 2008, we have been working in many areas, including:

Building a prototype: We have worked on building prototype equipment for handling trials, including a galley, transfer table, and folding service cart. We have also produced new concepts for galley inserts. The prototype is now complete and functional with mock-up galley inserts, and we will be using it for market validation activity with airlines in October 2009.

Testing with caterers: We have worked with all the major caterers to design equipment to enable them to move SPICE boxes around on the ground. We produce a simple device called a ‘skater’, which effectively just adds wheels to a meal box. Once this was developed, we completed tests in three caterer’s facilities (kitchens) to ensure the compatibility of SPICE with their current production processes. The results were very encouraging and revealed that there are no showstoppers for the caterers to use SPICE. Finally, we tested aircraft loading activity using our prototype galley. The important thing here is that is doesn’t take any longer to load an aircraft that has SPICE galleys, since this could impact aircraft turn-around times. We completed trials with three caterers and found excellent results, showing that SPICE galleys can be loaded in a time comparable to ATLAS galleys.

Quantifying the benefits for airlines: We have been completing numerous assessments of the value of SPICE to airlines. The most obvious economic benefits are in the weight saving and increased seat count, but we have also found that SPICE has great potential for improving crew productivity. We have quantified extra costs on both the airline and caterer side too – ‘recatering events’ and caterer investment in Skaters for example. Nevertheless, when we put our conservative numbers into a fleet-plan model to quantify the financial effects over time, we find that SPICE typically generates US$2.5million to US$3.5million of additional value per new delivery twin-aisle aircraft, depending on how far the airline is prepared to go in embracing SPICE’s innovation potential. We have also looked at retrofit cases and found that payback takes between three and five years, again depending on how much of SPICE’s potential the airline embraces.

Going into detail on weight, we have found that a typical weight saving on a twin-aisle aircraft will be about 600kg, with double that for an A380. This is mainly due to the fact that SPICE boxes don’t need wheels or a 9g-capable structure, since SPICE galley compartments are certified to 9g and allow flexibility in materials used for the transportation of service items. This means that we can use cheap, lightweight plastic boxes weighing 6.5kg in place of today’s trolley. Additionally, bulk items such as bagged snacks, in-flight entertainment (IFE) headsets or blankets etc can simply be transported in cardboard boxes or even just wrapped in plastic film to keep them dry and clean.

On seat count improvements, we have now compared 3D definitions of SPICE galleys for over a dozen delivered aircraft galley configurations, and found that a typical twin-aisle aircraft can gain two to three economy-class seats. SPICE galleys are much more space-efficient than today’s galleys because we have harmonised the galley insert (GAIN) and box sizes to the galley compartments, which produces a much more geometrically efficient design. Also, the use of the transfer table will enable airlines to remove health and safety policy restrictions on how many boxes can be stored in the upper part of the galley, because it reduces the need to lift and carry things around the galley. There are also improvements in GAIN design, which enable us to create denser capacity, or do away with some GAINs altogether. For example, unlike today’s galleys, SPICE’s upper storage compartments are all chilled, which means that airlines won’t need to provision space for three-mode chillers to chill drinks.

In terms of improving crew productivity, there are two main areas where SPICE is better than ATLAS. Firstly, SPICE solves many of the main causes of occupational hazard within galleys – namely the impact of lifting on shoulder and back pain, and the problem of blocked trolleys causing finger injuries. SPICE solves the lifting issue through the use of the transfer table, and solves the blocked trolley issue because SPICE boxes are moved on rollers, which roll only forwards and backwards, instead of trolleys which have castor wheels that can flip around into any orientation like a supermarket trolley.

The second area where SPICE improves crew productivity is through more efficient service-delivery stages. For example, SPICE’s 9g compartments enable the use of boxes that both contain drinks etc for transportation, and are used directly during the service. This means that service items can be pre-prepared for service by the caterer, come straight out of the galley for service and slot directly onto the folding service cart. This compares to today’s situation, where everything must first be taken out of standard units then rearranged into Vario drawers before being placed on top of the trolley.

So there are many benefits. There are also costs created and we have been working to quantify these as well. The biggest items are the recurring cost impacts caused by operating dual galley standards. The cost here is driven by what we have called ‘re-catering events’, when an aircraft needs to be swapped and the airline can only put in place a replacement aircraft with a different galley standard. This means that the caterer has to rebuild the catering load, which can take up to three hours. Fortunately, there are many factors that reduce this cost, mainly the fact that airlines are usually forced to schedule the same aircraft type due to the availability of crew trained on that aircraft type.

We expect extra costs from the caterer too. It will probably be them who have to buy the skaters for transportation of SPICE meal boxes. They may also need to rent extra floor space in some locations for storage of dual sets of galley equipment. These are items that are likely to feed back into their pricing, although they themselves say that it is difficult to quantify by how much when competition between caterers is taken into account.

Have there been any modifications as a result of the trials with caterers and flight attendants?

The biggest new design element that was created through joint testing activity was the design of the skater. However, on the whole there have been only minor modifications of the galley concept itself. For example, testing with flight attendants showed the need for markings on the galley and the folding service cart, which serve as alignment aids to make it easier to put the folding service cart in the right place for loading meal boxes.

Did the handling mock-up demonstrations happen as planned? If so, what was the reaction of the airlines?

The handling prototype demonstrations will take place during October with around 15 airlines, and will span two days, during which we will present the results of all the activity described above.

Can you identify any of the suppliers involved in the production of the handling mock-up, and what is the status of the supplier selection process for the technical mock-up?

We have worked with several industry names during production of equipment up to this stage. They include Aerocat for the supply of lightweight plastic SPICE boxes, and Diethelm-Keller for supply of metal SPICE boxes. We have also worked with DeSter to design new packaging concepts that take advantage of SPICE’s 9g compartments.

In terms of the monument itself, we are working with a very well known supplier of cabin equipment for the design and production of both galleys and GAINs. However, this is still commercially sensitive information and we cannot confirm whom at this stage.

Is there any relationship between the proposed new SPICE standard and the galley B/E Aerospace is developing for the A350?

Since Airbus has not yet launched SPICE, the A350 programme is developing an ATLAS-based ARINC 810 galley design, which B/E Aerospace is supplying. Therefore there is no relationship between this galley and SPICE.

Airbus will be deciding on the viability of offering SPICE using the airline feedback from the customer focus group. Although of course we think SPICE is a great idea, it is still possible that the airlines disagree!

If the decision on Authorisation to Offer due in the first half of next year is positive, what would be the next steps towards bringing the concept to fruition?

The first step is to get full engineering prototypes for galleys and GAINs. This is already underway with our selected galley supplier. We will perform several tests on the ground to prove galley performance parameters on loading, chilling, cooking times and quantifies etc.

Following that, we will put the prototype equipment into flight test to test the behaviour of the galley during flight, establish the maturity of key elements such as the transfer table, and also complete trials with passengers and caterers. We hope to complete this part of the activity with a willing partner airline.

Taking the prototype to production standard for availability next decade means deciding on our strategy for offering it on our individual programmes, then identifying suppliers and clarifying the offer details.

Jonathan Norris was appointed vice president of cabin design at Airbus in October 2008. In this role, he is responsible for new development activities on cabins for all Airbus programmes. Prior to this, he was cabin and cargo programme manager on the A350 XWB.