It’s been a very long week at Economy Class and Beyond, as we come down from Aircraft Interiors Expo and into our normal day to day life.
Which reminds me, that my legs still hurt.
Anyhoo. Onto the weekly roundup – Last Week at Economy Class and Beyond
The Spring Dom Fair, St Pauli, Hamburg.
We’ve been heavy on the publishing front this week, as a lot of companies have been sending press releases like free candy is falling from the sky.
We’ve filed and curated some of the best of those releases (and you don’t want to know some of the words I used when some hit in the middle of the night). Next week we’ll be down from 30 posts a week to something a little more reasonable.
For those of you who clicked through to learn the latest during Aircraft Interiors Expo, thank you.
Aircraft Interiors Expo and the Passenger Experience Week 2025
We’re spitting this into three sets of headlines to help you navigate through this post a little easier. As such, we’ve covered a lot this week. Enjoy all the headlines.
Crystal Cabin Awards
Cabin and Seating
- AirFi launches its “WingMan” Chatbot for Passenger Trip Planning Inflight
- Recaro unveils a seat for eVTOL aircraft with Eve Air Mobility
- Air Canada unveiled as the Launch Customer of Airspace Cabin on the Airbus A220
- Collins Aerospace demonstrates upgrades to the Pinnacle Seat
- Collins Aerospace unveils enhancements to Prime+ wheelchair seating solution
- Frontier Airlines partners with Geven for their First Class Seat
- All Nippon Airways and Recaro launch new seats for their Boeing 787-9
- Stelia Aerospace launches its updated RENDEZ-VOUS Seat
- Thai Airways selects Thompson Vantage for its Airbus A321neo
- Thai Airways signs LoI with Airbus to retrofit A350 cabins
- Azul Linhas Aéras taps Recaro Aircraft Seating for long-haul seating
- LATAM affirms their commitment to the Recaro R7 Business Class Seat ahead of installation
- Ethiopian Airlines signs Safran Seating for Z400 Economy Class Seats
Comms and IFE
- FlightPath3D introduces a faster rollout option, with Flightpath3D Cloud
- Viasat launches Amara – its next-generation connectivity solution
- Panasonic Avionics Launches its new onboard server – Converix
- Air India selects Panasonic Avionics Astrova for its inflight entertainment
- Qatar Airways nears its rollout of Starlink on Boeing 777 fleet, Airbus A350s next
- Riyadh Air to Launch Panasonic Avionics – Modular Interactive (MI)
- Cathay Pacific to offer fleetwide seatback IFE and connectivity on all aircraft from August 2025
- Airbus partners with Amazon and “Project Kuiper”
- Airbus and Hughes Network Systems formalise offering on HBCplus
- Caribbean Airlines returns to Bluebox for In-Flight Entertainment
New Aircraft News
It’s time to head away from the show, with a few orders and updates
- EVA Air confirms an order with Airbus for further aircraft – More Airbus A321neo and Airbus A350s on the way
- Lufthansa City Airlines takes delivery of its first Airbus A320neo – and waiting for the Airbus A220-300
- Airbus A350-900 with Trent XWB-84 Enhanced Performance engine receives EASA certification – one per cent improvement doesn’t sound a lot… but it adds up.
Routes and Networks
- Emirates to send refurbished Airbus A380s to Manchester and Millan – More updated double-decker fun to Manchester and Milan.
Pretty pictures
Next Week
As you can guess, I’ve put my feet up this weekend… well that’s a lie – I’m editing this in a coffee shop after sleeping off most of the show. I’m taking a few hours though, for a little self-care, time in the bath to unknot a lot of muscles and even play a little Pokemon Go.
From Monday, I’ve got a backlog to work through…. and a lot of it. We’ll have up to six passenger experience snapshots (buying me a little time to get the trip reports on the roll).
I’ll also be going through the Aircraft Interiors Expo, going through the missed headlines (and there were few from me), as well as getting ready to start the deep dives we do post-show (and there are some things I want to go into a lot more detail in, including the PRM solutions as well as update our Commerical Aviation Satellite Primer – and why you should care when you connect to your inflight Wifi.
And on top of that, we’re heading into the Easter Week, so we’ll have headlines through the week to keep you going.
Until next Saturday, Happy Landings!
Welcome to Economy Class and Beyond. Your no-nonsense guide to network news, honest reviews, in-depth coverage, unique research, as well as the humour and madness I only know how to deliver.
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