APEX EXPO to provide food for thought across broad spectrum of the passenger experience

Exploring and understanding the human sense of taste is imperative to enhancing the onboard passenger experience from a food and beverage perspective.

That’s why APEX has asked Inflightfeed.com founder Nikos Loukas and Branding.Aero founder and president Stathis Kefallonitis to present at the forthcoming APEX education day, which will be held on 17 September, just before the APEX EXPO trade show opens its doors in Long Beach, California.

The “branding flavours: passenger taste” presentation given by Loukas and Kefallonitis will look at how unique flavour combinations create memorable tasting experiences that reflect positively on an airline’s brand, and how other sensory elements like vision and smell can play a role as well.

Kefallonitis and Loukas will use an aircraft trolley to serve various meal options to “passengers” in the audience. Unbranded food items will be used to identify audience’s association to specific airlines and class of service. Participants may be surprised by the answers revealed!

Other presentations that will be given as part of this “improving travel” educational breakout session are “casual gaming – onboard trends, brands, and why passengers play”, presented by DTI Software VP of licensing Lisa Linnenkohl and Electronic Arts VP of mobile publishing Nick Rish, and “airline cabin crew connectivity – helping add value to the passenger experience”, presented by ARINC global satellite strategy director Simon Tudge.

Two separate educational breakout sessions will run concurrently with the “improving travel” session – “technology – programme updates” and “wireless – an exploration”. The former will focus on how airlines, vendors and passengers alike can use new technologies for easier payment, file delivery and other connectivity issues, whilst the latter will discuss streaming, bandwidth, portable devices and more.

This new three-track format allows attendees to focus on topics they deem the most important. Each session leans on the expertise of industry leaders to provide intensive and enlightening insight into the latest passenger trends, inflight applications, inflight entertainment and operational issues that are crucial to the airline passenger experience professional.

In addition to the afternoon breakout sessions, attendees can take advantage of a morning “learning journey” that features the best and brightest from various other industries. See details about all of the breakout sessions, and other events planned for the EXPO, here.

APEX and the International Flight Services Association (IFSA) are co-located in Long Beach this year, providing unparalleled access to the world’s leading airline services professionals.