Digitalisation within aviation is helping to drive airline efficiencies and enhance the passenger experience. It is also opening up new opportunities for airlines to realise extra revenue streams, reports Alex Preston

Regardless of whether an airline has already embarked on its digital path, or is just beginning, help is at hand from a number of companies to ensure the journey is smooth and fruitful. One such company is AERQ, the joint venture between LG Electronics and Lufthansa Technik.

According to Verena Bintaro, head of marketing & public relations: “Our digital platform AERENA takes the digital transformation of aircraft cabins to a new level.” It’s a bold statement, but Bintaro adds:

“Our open IT platform AERENA convinces with its user-friendliness and as an end-to-end solution. Until now, the integration of apps and content takes months, even years, resulting in high costs for airlines. AERENA changes this and provides a fast, easy, and flexible app integration.”

The process begins with a single login, through which airlines gain complete control of their app management, from the development to the deployment. Airlines can customise their digital onboard experience remotely and test it in a virtual test environment, reducing the time that airlines currently spend on physical test racks at the IFE supplier’s facilities dramatically.

“In working together with airlines, AERQ shows them how they can take full advantage of the cabin’s natural qualities as a place where airlines, passengers and selected partners come together to create a new economy in the sky,” Bintaro says.

It’s an economy built upon a portfolio of a comprehensive combination of state-of-the-art cabin touchpoints: a seat-centric inseat system including 4K monitors in every seat row, creating an ‘upscale entertainment experience’; and cabin digital signage powered by OLED technology.

Touchpoints

“The touchpoints inspire interaction and drive engagement,” says Bintaro, “for instance through a PED friendly environment.Every detail of our inseat system is designed for maximum ease of handling, from simple installation to maintenance.”

It’s also an economy in which there is a greater passenger engagement onboard and, crucially for airlines, a deeper understanding of passengers’ inflight behaviours and needs to generate savings, growth and revenue. Such revenue opportunities for airlines and partners arise through advertising, e-commerce, destination services and more. As Bintaro explains, passengers in return benefit from a personalised digital experience as airlines now can offer their preferred content, products and services at the right time.

The aim ofAERQ’s solutions, she says, is to help airlines to better respond to passengers’ needs and make their time on board a pleasant experience. As such, AERENA is designed to relieve the flight crew through digitalising processes for example by taking orders for food, beverages or products that can be bought or providing onboard information.

In combination with the benefits of AERENA, this frees up time to focus on creating an outstanding experience for the passengers onboard. As Bintaro proffers, turning the aircraft into a space for commerce opens up new responsibilities for the crew, making them important players in the new global economy in the sky.

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Iterations

To help crew with these new duties, AERQ is looking ahead, developing concepts which could be integrated into future iterations of the AERENA platform. One such tool is the AI chatbot The Virtual Flight Assistant which can be controlled by the paired passenger PED.

Virtual Flight Assistant is part of the company’s Be Safe, Build Trust initiative, which was shortlisted for a Crystal Cabin Award in 2021, and is AERQ’s response to the new hygiene demands of passengers.

The thinking behind Virtual Flight Assistant is to ease and support the crew’s interaction, for example if the crew member is not instantly available. The chatbot can respond to questions which would otherwise be addressed to the crew, such as about the onboard menu if digitalised, as well as around any service available on board.

Another concept, also part of Be Safe, Build Trust, is QTouch. Giving further details, Bintaro explains that QTouch targets the passengers’ interaction with the inseat system using gesture control technology based on deep learning (AI) and advanced 3D sensor technology. It enables control and command over the inseat system solely with hand gestures.

While AERQ is, as Bintaro avers, “constantly looking into the latest digital trends and solutions, especially within consumer electronics, to see how these can be integrated into the cabin,” QTouch remains under investigation as a suitable technology for the inseat system. “Seeing this as part of a payment use case is not unthinkable in the future. This could be done, for example, in combination with pairing of the passenger’s PED,” she adds. Whatever future features will be, Bintaro is sure of one thing:
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“AERENA will fill the emotional gap of the passenger between start and landing by making their time on board more valuable, productive, and worthwhile.”

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Click here to read the full Feb/Mar issue of Aircraft Cabin Management magazine.

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