APEX Editor's Blog

After Delta Air Lines caused a major stir in the passenger experience community earlier this year with plans to configure its new Boeing 737-900ERs with smaller modular lavatories, Boeing’s rival Airbus is now marketing its own “Smart-Lav” to narrowbody aircraft operators. The concept behind the B/E Aerospace-designed lav featured on Delta’s narrowbodies is to make [...]

These days it seems as if more and more airlines are opting to offer a 31in seat pitch in the economy class cabins of their long-haul aircraft (or perhaps worse still, ultra-skinny seat width). But don’t lump Oman Air into that bunch; the Muscat-based carrier’s Airbus A330s, which are configured 2-4-2 in economy, feature seats [...]

Once American and US Airways combine to produce the “new American”, inflight product is set to take on an unprecedented eminence as a distinguishing competitive factor among the country’s big three carriers. Current US Airways CEO and future chief of the merged American Doug Parker stressed the new paradigm during the recent Phoenix Sky Harbor [...]

PHOENIX: Hawaiian Airlines has undertaken a study to determine what inflight entertainment solution it will offer on its ageing Boeing 767 widebodies. Even though the Honolulu-based carrier’s 767s are being replaced by new flagship A330 widebodies – which feature Panasonic Avionics’ eX2 inflight entertainment system – Hawaiian still intends to operate six to eight of [...]

PHOENIX: As airlines get more creative in driving down seat mile costs, customers could find themselves packed even more tightly on aircraft. Noting that airlines’ preferences have moved towards larger-gauge aircraft, Airbus Americas CEO Barry Eccleston told attendees at the Phoenix International Aviation Symposium today that the A321 narrowbody is rapidly becoming the airframer’s most [...]

Italian seat manufacturer Optimares believes that the constraints placed on airlines by the product catalogue systems employed by airframers are hindering aircraft interior product innovation. Speaking to the APEX editor’s blog at the recent Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg, Optimares business development head Marco Tonucci claimed the airframers’ requirements that airlines select seats and other interior [...]

Diehl Aerosystems will maintain a strong focus on the retrofit market and does not see a future for a complete cabin offering for linefit, although it has “all the elements” in place just in case. “I don’t think it’s going to happen that an OEM would buy a complete package from one supplier,” says Diehl [...]

Looking for further evidence that inflight connectivity has become the cost of business for airlines? Then look no further than Airbus, which has seen all of its Airbus A350 XWB customers commit to connectivity, and two thirds of ordered A380s slated for equipage, the APEX editor’s blog can reveal. “Airbus is fully committed to connectivity and [...]

The keyword at Airbus today was passenger comfort. And while the rest of the industry continues to whittle economy class seat width down to almost nothing, Airbus plans to move in the exact opposite direction with a pair of truly revolutionary “enrichments” to their already stellar aircraft line-up. First up was the premier of Airbus [...]

MIRABEL: It could have been called The Greatest Show on Earth, or at least The Greatest Show in Aviation, at least in recent years. But instead it was called the “Bombardier CSeries Program Update”. It was held on 7 March in Mirabel, Quebec, with a webcast companion in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Bombardier’s effort to develop [...]