In Conversation: AiX Preview with Aviation Consultant Gary Weissel
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Gary Weissel
Managing Officer
Tronos Aviation Consulting
Gary is the managing officer of Tronos Aviation Consulting providing a wide range of advisory services including Asset Management, Aircraft Remarketing, Aircraft Interiors Management and OEM product development services. Gary’s career spans 26 years of aviation experience. Prior to starting Tronos Aviation Consulting, he spent 14 years at SH&E with his last position there as co-managing officer of the firm’s Aviation and Aerospace Practice. Gary has also held positions in program management, engineering and interiors at B/E Aerospace and Delta Air Lines. He has specialized expertise in interior product definition and program management. Gary is a regular speaker at industry conferences and has appeared on CNN as an expert in aviation program management. He holds a Bachelors Degree in Aerospace Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology.
Without giving too much away, can you give us a preview of what to expect at your PEX Conference presentation?
I’ll be providing a glimpse into our forecast of the seat requirements for both retrofit and new production air transport passenger jet aircraft. The presentation will set the stage for the enormous production challenge the industry must address over the next 10 years.
The aircraft interiors market is booming with a projected reach of $12 billion by 2016. What are some of the main factors driving this growth?
About half of that growth is driven by new production aircraft. Boeing and Airbus are producing at record rates. You’ve also got new aircraft entering the market including 787, A350, Bombardier C-Series and others in the near-term. Whenever you have new aircraft entering the market, you’ll normally see a corresponding uptick in cabin upgrades of older model aircraft for operators to stay competitive in terms of cabin products with the newer aircraft. In addition, airlines are back to profitability so product upgrades that were put on hold (or even overdue prior to the last downturn) are now being implemented in the market.
Single innovation that will change the economy seating experience?
Flexible seating concepts. I don’t know what that will look like yet and there is a long way to go from a regulatory standpoint to allow flexible seating concepts but looking farther out into the future, I see this as a potential. It would provide operators more flexibility in adjusting seating and cabins to meet the actual load-factors and demand of specific flights and routes. An early precursor to this was the variable geometry seat that many European operators used in the late 1990s and early 2000s to allow some flexibility on narrow body regional routes and flexible business and economy class seat counts. However, those seats were heavy and had reliability issues and so never really caught on.
In the Airbus cabin concept for 2050, seating classification disappears. Is this a concept you can imagine becoming a reality in 35 years from now?
No, I think the market will still demand seat classes and service classes just as you see a variety of automobile classes (luxury, family sedan, compact, etc.). I see the market continuing to require a variety of seating and service levels to cater to various sectors of the marketplace.
What’s your favorite seat on an airplane?
I don’t have a favorite seat or favorite seat product. There are a lot of good ones out there but nothing is perfect. Seat comfort is an incredibly subjective and personal preference issue. No seat is perfect for everyone. Spending way too much time traveling for business on airplanes, my favorite seat is whatever seat I’m sitting in on my flight back home.
What do you hope attendees will take away from your presentation?
I hope attendees better understand the challenges facing the airline seating industry. If we assumed that we were able to meet the challenges of certification, product development and constant evolutions within the seating industry, just the sheer volume alone of what’s required to support the market is enough of a challenge by itself.
Don’t miss Gary’s panel “Ten-Year Seating Forecast,” April 13 at 2:40 p.m. in Congress Center Hamburg.
AIX conference photography: Maxim Sergienko / Raum 11