Honouring the best technologies and concepts taking passenger experience to the next level // New categories Accessibility and Judges’ Choice: Airline Innovation for 2025 season // Gala award ceremony to be held on 8 April 2025 in Hamburg, Germany

The world's most prestigious honour for aircraft interior innovation, the Crystal Cabin Award, is set to celebrate ground-breaking achievements in passenger experience at its annual ceremony on 8 April 2025, during the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg, Germany. These coveted trophies recognize game-changing advancements shaping the future of air travel comfort, efficiency, and sustainability. Scores of entries spanning major airlines, suppliers, manufacturers and design firms from across the globe were narrowed down to 22 finalists across seven categories by a jury of industry experts. Among the new categories are “Accessibility” and “Judges’ Choice: Airline Innovation”. All finalists have demonstrated an unwavering commitment to enhancing the passenger journey through ingenious cabin solutions and cutting-edge technology.

Cabin Technologies

This new category unites innovations around systems, components andmaterials, providing exciting insights into the future of the aircraft cabin. Collins Aerospace has entered “Galley.ai”, an intelligent and connectedtechnological ecosystem that optimizes crew efficiency by streamlining galleymanagement and enabling frictionless communication between crew and passengersvia artificial intelligence. Diehl Aviation aims to revolutionise cabin interiors with “eDecor”, a customizable, energy-efficient décor that enhances both brand presence and passenger comfort, changing the cabin’s appearance on the fly. Invisible when not in use, Lufthansa Technik’s “Hidden TouchDisplay” is a customizable touch panel that integrates into any cabin’s design, delivering an effortless user experience while maintaining a sleek, uncluttered look.

Judges Choice: Airline Innovation

For the 2025 season, the Crystal CabinAward features a new category that recognises the decisive role that airlinesplay in advancing the passenger experience ecosystem. Selecting from entries byfour of the world’s leading airlines, the judging panel will be asked to honourone innovation with a special “Judges Choice” award. The four airline innovations up for consideration were submitted by Air France, Air India, Cathay Pacific and United Airlines. The entry from Air France encompasses new cabins for the Embraer 190 single-aisle aircraft that are due to enter line service in early 2025. The cabin features new leather seats by French manufacturer Expliseat that are 30% lighter than the current model. Air India’s entry is Vista, an IFE system designed to prioritise the personal needs of the customer and offer a connected and immersive experience above the clouds. “Gallery In The Skies” by Cathay Pacific puts unique works of art into bespoke gallery spaces aboard its Boeing 777-300ER aircraft, using design features to create an inspiring art viewing experience in the air. United Airlines’ new digital platform – “United’s Onboard Digital Experience” – is centred on delivering a personalized experience and relevant information to enable customers to feel informed, at ease and in control of their travelexperience on over 1,000 aircraft.

Passenger Comfort

The innovations in this category serve one purpose: A relaxed, enjoyable and care-free experience for air passengers. The Airbus “A220 Airspace Cabin” extends the airframer’s Airspace cabin concept to the smallest member of its commercial airliner fleet, adding XL overhead bins, Airspace lighting designs and improved power supply for passengers’ devices. Cathay Pacific, JPA Design and Reaktor have turned their attention to integrating business suite functionality into the IFEC system of its Aria Suite with “IFEC: In-Flight Entertainment &Control”, giving passengers control over many functions directly within the entertainment system’s interface. Long-haul ergonomics are at the centre of Comfort Motion Global’s “Healthy Motion Seating” entry; this software, developed incooperation with Thompson Aero Seating and Astronics PGA, proactively makes subtle adjustments to positions of seats fitted with electric motors to reduce fatigue and discomfort on long-distance journeys.

IFEC and Digital Services

Seamless connectivity and personalised content delivery have become key drivers of passengers’ perception of service quality on their journey. Focussed on the needs of VIP passengers travelling on Boeing 737s, Lufthansa Technik, Satcom Direct and IDAIR have collaborated on “Triple Innovation For A Five Star Cabin Experience”, a combination of a low-drag, tail fin-mounted radome, an electronically steered LEO antenna solution and an integrated content delivery system designed to maximize operational effectiveness, project value and in-cabin experience for the VIPs. Safran Cabin has entered “Safran Connected Interiors” to the award in 2025. Using internet-of-things technology, the system autonomously captures and transfers operational data across cabin equipment to provide a fully digitalized, retrofit-ready maintenance solution. Thales Avionics’ entry, “360Stream”, is dedicated to providing the same standard of seamless content delivery we experience on the ground. "360Stream" provides access to “happening now” live content and for the first time offers Digital Video Recording (DVR) capability, as well as near-live updates and highlights of live events.

Sustainable Cabin

Sustainability is a key area of innovation for the Crystal Cabin Award, recognizing an industry-wide movement towards saving emissions, reducing waste and introducing circularity into processes and products. Boeing, Adient Aerospace, BotanyWeaving and LanzaTech have teamed up to enter “From Waste Carbon to Cabin Comfort: Bringing Circularity to Aircraft Textiles”. Using carbon capture technology, the system transforms carbon emissions into sustainable fabric for the aircraft interiors industry, providing multiple ways of reducing the environmental footprint of textile production. Diehl Aviation has chosen to concentrate on materials circularity for its 2025 entry, “ECO Bin”. Billed as the world’s first fully recyclable overhead stowage compartment, it features a specially developed recyclable sandwich material and reduces environmental impact by saving weight and CO2 emissions. Completing the three finalists for the Sustainable Cabin category in 2025 is Unum Aircraft Seating, whose entry “Ecoprint Refoam” utilises additive manufacturing techniques to create a lightweight, re-cyclable replacement fortraditional polyurethane foam stacks in aircraft seating.

Accessibility

Innovation to ensure the same quality of air travel for everyone has become an area of growing focus within the aviation industry. To reflect this important trend, Accessibility is now an award category at the Crystal Cabin Awards in its own right. Cathay Pacific has reached the final with an innovation to make its Aria Suite business seat more accessible for wheelchair users. Titled “Seamless Accessibility”, the concept integrates a movable door garage specifically created to make transitioning from a wheelchair to a passenger seat easier. Collins Aerospace’s entry, “Prime+”, is a cabin platform system that enables for wheelchair users to fly while seated in their wheelchairs, completely removing the need to move from a wheelchair to an installed seat. “Space³” by Diehl Aviation adopts a flexible approach to accommodate wheelchair users in aircraft lavatory areas, incorporating several features such as foldable doors and sinks, while saving up to 80kg of weight.

University

A hotbed of innovation, the university category opens up the Crystal Cabin Award to blue-sky concepts from university students. Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (HAW) cooperated with Diehl Aviation on “Single Aisle Lavatory Door 1 - Accessibility for all”. The concept is designed to enhance accessibility for passengers with reduced mobility on single-aisle aircraft in the lavatory space in a way that allows users to travel more comfortably and independently. The lavatory features a spacious layout that accommodates an onboard wheelchair and provides sufficient room for a support person, ensuring dignity and ease of use. “Ultra-lightweight Display System” by students from Tongji University in cooperation with Boeing leverages miniature projectors and gesture recognition technology to deliver a new in-flight entertainment system (IFES) experience for both airlines and passengers. Each projector can use surfaces like seatbacks, tray tables, windows and cabin partitions to display flight information or video content. The students of UDIT Universidad de Diseño, Innovación y Tecnología in Madrid in cooperation with Iberia entered “R.A.I.S.S.”, or Restroom Autonomous In-flight Sanitising System. This robotic system cleans the floor after each use, and incorporates additional highlights such as an interactive screen, an island-format sink, and a self-cleaning toilet system.

The Innovations of The Year: Gala Award Ceremony on 8 April 2025 in Hamburg

The Crystal Cabin Award, an initiative of the Hamburg Aviation cluster, is awarded this year in seven categories: Cabin Technologies, Passenger Comfort, IFEC & Digital Services, Sustainable Cabin, Accessibility, University and Judges' Choice: Airline Innovation.

The finalists will have the opportunity to present their concepts in person to the jury at the world's leading trade fair for aircraft cabins, the Aircraft Interiors Expo (8 - 10 April 2025 in Hamburg). The winners of the 2025 Crystal Cabin Awards will be announced on the evening of 8 April at a gala dinner at the 5-star Grand Elysee Hamburg hotel.