Passenger Experience You Can See, Feel and Taste at LSG Sky Chefs
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APEX Insight: LSG Sky Chefs’ hypothetical passengers, Tek, Natalia and Shawn, have returned to the Aircraft Interiors Expo this year, having inspired all kinds of innovations that are sure to create some “wow” moments on board. From food packaging to in-flight entertainment, it seems not a passenger touchpoint on board was shortsighted.
If there’s one thing to be learned from LSG Sky Chefs’ walking tour through the passenger experiences of their hypothetical passengers – Tek, a metropolitan business traveler; Natalia, a health-conscious marketing expert; and Shawn, an inspiration-seeking art director – it’s that the catering company has analyzed their personal preferences from all angles to come up with some forward-thinking, but very life-sized concepts.
“When we develop our approach … we always look at the consumer first,” says Josefine Corsten, SVP, Communications and Marketing, LSG Sky Chefs. “We’ve really shown the journey along the travel chain, and we build real products and services.”
“When we develop our approach … we always look at the consumer first.” – Josefine Corsten, LSG Sky Chefs
The experience that LSG Sky Chefs has envisioned for each passenger engages the senses. There’s china that mirrors the soft angles of an auto body, snacks in all shapes and sizes, perfume that gives a whiff of each of the muses’ personalities, and a takeaway coffee holder with room to slip in a box of cookies.
“Let’s say Shawn wants to stop over at the lounge, but then he’s probably either running late or wants to walk or has got a long way to his gate. He can take this with him,” says Cheryl Armstrong, marketing manager at SPIRIANT, a brand under the LSG Sky Chefs umbrella. Even a coffee cup has been thoroughly thought out to suit Shawn’s on-the-go lifestyle. It’s essentially the packaging for a coffee capsule; all the extra packaging and extra actions have been whittled down to the single step of adding hot water.
And you know those plastic drinking glasses they serve on board? The ones that break into sharp pieces when you accidentally crush them while stuffing them into the seatback pocket? Well, LSG Sky Chefs has created a shatter-proof plastic cup. “A lot of airlines don’t have trash compactors on board,” Armstrong explains. With this cup, “They could just collect it … and then get it disposed on landing. It doesn’t break, it doesn’t create sharp edges, and it’s very safe for the crew to use.”
Many items on display at the booth were multi-purpose. Design thinking was evident from aesthetics to logistics and seen in everything from the stackable trays to save room in the galley cart to the ambient and frozen foods that provide a longer shelf life. And now, with LSG Sky Chefs’ recent acquisition of Retail inMotion (which also includes Media inMotion), which ties catering to tech, more onboard ancillary revenue options have come into play – including in-flight entertainment apps.
“They’re all using the same app, but the system is intuitive,” Martin Cunnison, CEO of Media inMotion, explains, regarding how one app can be tailored to Tek, Natalia or Shawn. “The more you’re using it, the more we can start to replicate products that are relevant to the particular passenger.”