Individualisation of Inflight Catering Meals—An Automation Concept for Integrating Pre-Ordered Meals during the Flight for All Passengers

Abstract

Inflight catering services are crucial for air travel. Airlines provide food and beverages to the passengers during the flight with different options depending on, e.g., the flying class, distance, and type of service. Our contribution outlines previous efforts to optimise the inflight catering processes and highlights the possibilities to individualise the current services. Individualisation is a growing trend and may challenge the processes that are possibly not wholly prepared to deliver a customised meal for each passenger onboard the aircraft. We present our passenger survey which confirms the demand for the individualisation of inflight meals; we explored which dimensions can be supported by incorporating automation. We performed an analysis of the current inflight catering process for developing automation concepts. Subsequently, an automation concept for the individualisation of inflight meals through pre-ordering is introduced, followed by an evaluation scenario. Within the evaluation, it was possible to consider the feasibility of the individualisation of inflight catering meals and to deliver requirements for the further development of automated services.

Method to Model the Environmental Impacts of Aircraft Cabin Configurations during the Operational Phase

“…For a comprehensive cradle-to-grave approach, we will work on the integration of the supplier to close data gaps and enable a full environmental assessment. Another field of application could be also the environmental assessment of new cabin-operation concepts [77].…”