APEX in Profile: Rich Salter
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Rich Salter
Cofounder and Chief Technology Officer
Lumexis Corporation
Rich received his B.Sc and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Ohio University and interned in its Avionics Engineering Center. Later, he cofounded Airshow map displays and consulted on in-flight entertainment for airlines and suppliers. In 2003, he cofounded Lumexis. Rich has served on the board of the WAEA (now APEX) and its Technology Committee (TC), ARINC Cabin Systems Subcommittee and the FAA PED Aviation Rulemaking Committee. He is currently the leader of APEX TC and its Payment Technologies Working Group.
FAST FACTS
Location: SNA
Now Watching: LA Lakers and Clippers basketball
The future of flight will be: Extraordinary
Favorite hotel: The Rilano Hotel Hamburg
Favorite aircraft: B747-400
Paper or electronic boarding pass: Both
Did you choose the airline industry or did it choose you?
I chose avionics while attending Ohio University in the 1970s, and also became a private pilot. Later I chose airlines after we launched Airshow (now owned by Rockwell Collins) back in the early 1980s. We had sold the Airshow moving map product to thousands of private biz jets, but I wanted the general public to see the maps, so jumped on the opportunity when Swissair, SAS, Air New Zealand and Qantas became interested. A trip to Swissair in Zurich in 1985 to explain Airshow to their engineers hooked me on the airline business for good – and I came back with our first airline order, too!
“There will be more and more bandwidth, but it will not be free, so our industry will continue to be judicious in its use for in-flight entertainment.”
If you weren’t doing your current job, what would you love to be doing?
I used to be involved in land-use planning with the City of Irvine and a local environmental watchdog group called Friends of Newport Coast. I loved that community involvement and the challenge of creating long-lasting improvements and open space for the community.
How do you see in-flight entertainment evolving over the coming years? What will be the key drivers?
Consumer technology and trends on the ground will drive what we see in the air. Whether it’s fiber-optic backbone networks delivering high-definition movies and holograms, or Wi-Fi delivering content to those last few passengers, the onboard networks will evolve by following technology on the ground.
Off-aircraft connectivity will continue to grow dramatically with next-gen satellite systems, and apps will continue to spring up for doing everything imaginable. Players, Ã la Google, Amazon, Facebook, Netflix, Apple, Samsung and the like, will become common in-flight entertainment partners. Virtual reality, augmented reality and second screen will be used for more and more functions.
With higher bandwidth, there will be opportunities to do much more with the connected aircraft. What will the industry do with more bandwidth?
There will be more and more bandwidth, but it will not be free, so our industry will continue to be judicious in its use for in-flight entertainment. Streaming movies ground-to-air and in-cabin video from air-to-ground (for security, etc.) will continue to see limited use.
However, being connected to social media while on board will really “soar.” And higher bandwidth connectivity will enable travel, retail and reservation apps to excel in performance (using the real-time user authentication and credit card validation that is available now for higher-value transactions).
What’s the one item you can’t travel without?
Bose noise-canceling headset.
Craziest travel experience?
Traveling to Tel Aviv, Israel, for a WAEA board meeting in 2000 when Karen Schipper was board president. Pope John Paul II was visiting Israel the same week, and the security was intense – including the airport experience regarding bag searching, interviewing about every stamp in the passport. My wife, Sally, was along and got so flustered by the interrogation and guns that she left her purse on the conveyor belt at check-in, so we lost our credit cards at the start of the trip, too.
Another crazy trip was to the WAEA EXPO in Brisbane, Australia, in September 2001, during the week of 9/11. No need to say any more about travel during that week…
Favorite APEX conference?
Basel, Switzerland, in 1989. Italo Poli of Swissair was board president, and the networking events were genuinely Swiss. Picture the entire EXPO attendees group boating up the Rhine to Feldschlösschen Brewery, watching the Swiss Carnival dancers and more. And you just cannot beat those beautiful Swiss towns and mountain vistas.