The winners of this year’s Crystal Cabin Awards were revealed last night at the annual Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg. The prestigious awards highlighted the best aircraft cabin innovations across seven different design categories among the 85 shortlisted entries this year.

Here we take a closer look at the winners as well as the most futuristic aircraft interior designs that were unveiled at this year’s event.

Delta One Suite

Category: Cabin Concepts

Delta Air Lines took the top prize in this year’s Cabin Concepts category with its Delta One Suite design, which lends a “first class feel to business class travel” offering private areas with privacy partitions. Due to be installed on its Airbus A350 aircraft this autumn, it is said to be the first business class cabin to feature a sliding door for every seat. Other highlighted features include an in-flight entertainment system and “thoughtfully designed” stowage areas.

Delta One Suite

The major US airline usurped rival American carrier United Airlines, the world’s third largest airline, whose Polaris Lounge design, offering aisle access from every seat, was among those shortlisted.

Smart Cabin Reconfiguration

Category: Passenger Comfort Hardware

Airbus, one of the world’s largest aircraft manufacturers, saw a total of four entries shortlisted at this year’s awards, including its winning Smart Cabin Reconfiguration concept, designed in collaboration with German aircraft manufacturer Recaro.

Airbus's Smart Cabin Configuration concept features folding seats

The folding seat design would allow cabin crew to adapt the seat configuration according to the real-time passenger count for every flight and maximise cabin space for optimal passenger comfort. The innovative new seats, which could be easily adjusted by cabin crew even without any prior mechanical expertise, would also reduce downtime for seat layout changes which are normally said to require a day to implement.

A nifty convertible bar/galley from Diehl Comfort Modules was among those commended in the Passenger Comfort Hardware category, for its design of an aircraft kitchenette which could be transformed into a bar or duty-free sales counter in seconds, while Canadian transport company Bombardier was shortlisted for its concept of “barrier-free toilets”.

A rendering of the Octaspring

Octaspring

Category: Material & Components

A “revolutionary” lightweight seat cushion designed by Vanema, in collaboration with Boxmark, won this year’s Materials & Components category for its potential to offer increased passenger comfort on long-haul flights. Using 30 per cent less material and reducing the seat cushion’s weight by up to 32 per cent (depending on the aircraft), the Octaspring cushions have been made with foam springs that move in three dimensions, offering a more customised seat that “reduces pressure points, evenly distributing body weight and improving seat ergonomics”, the company claims.

Smart Onboard Wheelchair

Category: University

An innovative lightweight in-flight wheelchair concept from the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (HAW), which claims to provide “easy and efficient cabin aisle mobility”, took the top prize for the University category.

A rendering of the Smart Onboard Wheelchair which could fit over the toilet seat

The uniquely designed seat features an “over toilet functionality” allowing it to be fit over the toilet bowl.

“Current Onboard Wheelchairs (OBW) require more lavatory space for their usage. Most lavatories especially in single aisle aircraft are not OBW accessible so far. The Smart OBW is the only wheelchair that fits above a toilet bowl and eliminates the need to transfer the user onto the toilet seat,” the company said.

The wheelchair design beat previous winner Delft’s “Revitalisation System” which “turns the cabin seating upholstery into a game controller, with body movements whilst sitting controlling the on-board entertainment system.”

Airbus's ReTrolley - a "recycler on wheels"

ReTrolley

Category: Greener Cabin, Health, Safety and Environment

Airbus’s second winning concept was the ReTrolley design, which features a trolley that could both recycle and compress passengers’ rubbish as it passes through the aisle. The “recycler on wheels” would replace standard bin trolleys, reduce the aircraft’s total waste volume by 30 per cent, and up to 30kg in equipment weight without the use of electronic compressors and free up space in the galley.

A post shared by GermFalcon (@germfalcon) on Oct 10, 2016 at 3:41pm PDT

GermaFalcon, from the US manufacturer of the same name, a cabin cleaning device which claims to “instantly” kill bacteria, viruses and superbugs on aircraft seats and other exposed surfaces using only ultraviolet C light, was among the other finalists, joined by the Revolution Toilet concept from French aircraft equipment manufacturer Zodiac Aerospace which also claims to tackle bacteria.

Airtime Portal would allow passengers to stream video, browse the internet and read digital magazines from their own devices

Airtime Portal

Category: Electronic Systems

Global Eagle Entertainment took the top prize for the Electronic Systems category with Airtime Portal, a wireless in-flight entertainment system which would allow passengers to browse the internet, stream video and read digital magazines on their own personal electronic devices.

The design was followed by Airbus’s WAIC (Wireless Avionics Intra-Communications) concept which offers smoke detectors, lighting and temperature regulation controlled by a radio frequency, without the need for cables.

Power Line Communication

Category: Cabin Systems

Diehl Aerospace won the award for its Power Line Communication concept where the aircraft’s existing cables could also be used as a distribution network for both power and data, offering a significant reduction in aircraft wiring, weight and volume.

The design trumped Zodiac Aerospace’s concept for a light sensor above the overhead lockers that would indicate the availability of free cabin baggage space, which was among the finalists, along with Airbus’s Watchdog sensor design which would send out an alert whenever there was movement near the door handle of the plane, to avoid accidental activation of the emergency escape chutes when the aircraft doors are opened on the ground.

A rendering of the future first class cabins on board Airbus's A380 aircraft

More aircraft design innovations

Following last month’s news of the A380’s replacement of its wide staircase, Airbus unveiled its New Forward Stairs (NFS) design at this year’s Aircraft Interiors Expo, which aims to optimise cabin space and free up the A380’s floor for 20 additional passengers across business, premium economy and economy.

Airbus's New Forward Staircase feature on the A380

This new feature of the world’s largest commercial aircraft would be joined by several other tweaks including an 11-abreast 3-5-3 economy seating layout on the main deck (but maintaining an 18-inch seat width), the relocation of stairs to the upper deck and adjacent lower-deck crew-rest areas and the removal of sidewall stowages.

The changes would allow for a total of around 80 more passengers including 23 more in economy, 11 more in premium economy (with a nine-abreast layout), 10 more in business and 14 more following a redesign of the rear stair of the galley.

New Tourist Class seats to be installed on Dreamliner aircraft Credit: Lift by Encore

Boeing, in collaboration with Lift by EnCore, also revealed a new wide-body economy seat design for its 787 Dreamliner aircraft. The new Tourist Class seat features screens set in a cove and would be equipped with a lighting system that is synchronised with the aircraft’s lighting system for boarding, dusk, and meal times.

The major American aircraft manufacturer also announced plans to install a “next generation photoluminescent emergency floor path marking system” (saf-Tglo® SuperSeal UltraLite), designed in collaboration with STG Aerospace, on its Dreamliner aircraft.

Air New Zealand's new middle seat design offers three centimetres more width on board its new A320 and A321 aircraft

Air New Zealand also showcased a new spacious design for the unpopular middle seat, which gives it three centimetres more width space, while the widths of window and aisle seats were also expanded by one centimetre each.

The wider seats will be installed on the airline’s new A320 and A321 aircraft which are expected to be delivered by 2018.