DLD 260: APEX EXPO 2019–The hunt for news!

September 19, 2019

Nothing like walking into a tradeshow booth and having the vendor openly lament dropping $75,000 to exhibit at the show. But that’s one of the more interesting interviews we pulled this week at the combination APEX/AIX/IFSA event in Los Angeles.

Once we did find people to talk to there were a few interesting stories that came through. Among them:

  • Spirit has new seats on the way, and they no longer want to talk about pitch as a personal space metric
  • The Optimares Quadra seat coming to Qatar Airways in mid-2020 is better than we thought it would be
  • Bluetooth audio really is coming to planes in the next couple months or years, depending on the vendor and implementation scope. We tried out a few of the demo systems with mixed to poor results.
  • Can Virtual Reality become a mainstay of the inflight entertainment world? Incremental improvements every time we get to a show suggest that there’s still legs in this industry.
  • Inflight connectivity antennae are getting flatter, but the next generation remains too far away to get very excited yet.
  • Some interesting developments from catering supply companies as they seek to reduce waste in the cabin

And, as always, the usual ramblings that are a hallmark of our show. Enjoy!

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