The organisers of the Passenger Experience Conference (PEC) have confirmed that the event will return to Hamburg on 30 March 2020, providing an opportunity to hear industry experts share their insights, ideas and analysis on transformative approaches that can be applied to improve the passenger experience.
The conference programme has been curated around three overarching themes: ‘thinking like a disruptor’, ‘delivering a customer-centric journey’ and ‘sustainability as the next paradigm shift for air travel’.
Thinking like a disruptor
Across a number of sessions, PEC will encourage industry professionals to challenge their preconceptions and accelerate innovation in air travel by helping them to make disruptive thinking part of the process of doing business. As travel visionaries get ever closer to launching new transport modes such as aerial taxis, hyperloops and autonomous vehicles into the travel ecosystem, the PEC programme will delve into how their challenges and solutions will influence airline passenger experiences. Furthermore, it will examine some of the game-changing technologies, materials and methodologies that will help airlines and their partners drive more responsive, more connected and more comfortable onboard experiences.
Ryan Scott, SVP of global sales at Boom Supersonic, and Ben Orson, managing director of JPA Design, will provide insight into innovating aviation for the 21st century. Florent Petteni, aircraft interiors marketing director at Airbus, will discuss disrupting from within, while Cristian Sutter, VP for aviation strategy at GDC Technics, and Matthew Nicholls, sales director at Tapis Corporation, will join other names for a round table exploring the challenges and opportunities of pushing the boundaries for long-haul flights.
Delivering a customer-centric journey
Travel organisations are increasingly integrating digital tools and technologies into their businesses to better understand their customers and deliver more relevant products and services. With digital transformation front-runners clearly placing the customer at the very heart of their business models, speakers at PEC 2020 will consider how personalisation in aviation is going to evolve and discuss some of the innovative solutions that will deliver tomorrow’s customer-centric journey.
Entrepreneur and author, Peter Shankman, will deliver a keynote presentation on how the economy of the next 50 years will be run by the customer experience, including how to stay at the forefront of every customer’s mind and how millennials, Generation Z and neuroatypicals are consuming content in the modern world. While representatives of Collins Aerospace – Joel Otto, senior director of strategic planning, and Alexis Hickox, director of product marketing – will examine why getting to grips with the data ecosystem is as important for passenger experience and interiors specialists as it is for CIOs and CTOs.
The conference will also host a round table on integrating data and technology for the best passenger experiences, with senior executives from IATA and Diehl Aviation as well as Michael Childers, chief consultant of content and media strategy at Lufthansa Systems, and Stathis Kefallonitis, founder and president of Branding.Aero contributing.
Sustainability: the next paradigm shift for air travel
Air travel is under close scrutiny for its sustainability credentials. With this in mind, the PEC programme for 2020 will debate how this dominant topic is set to be the next paradigm shift for air travel.
Specialist talks will explore what role the interiors and passenger experience sector will play in supporting efforts to reduce the carbon footprint of the aviation industry. Thomas Rotte, an industrial design engineer at Delft University of Technology will offer an opportunity to learn more about how sustainability is driving new thinking about the cabin interior when he discusses The Flying V – the university’s energy-efficient response to the challenge to innovate more sustainable air travel.
In addition to a roundtable considering how the aviation and interiors OEMs and their supply chain partners can work together to reduce aviation’s carbon footprint, a session on delivering carbon-neutral cabin and travel services will be presented by the likes of Anne de Hauw, founder of IN Air Travel Experience, and Gregoire James, founder and president of GeneraCycle.
Speaking about the Passenger Experience Conference, Polly Magraw, the event’s director, said: “Each year it’s incredibly exciting to see the Passenger Experience Conference programme come together, and with so many amazing names to announce in the coming weeks. Importantly, these three themes will look not just at what is happening in the industry at present, but the trends, ideas and solutions that are advancing the aircraft interior industry of the future.
“It’s for this reason that PEC has such a strong reputation as the industry’s one-stop-shop to learn about future trends and discover solutions for the challenges of today and tomorrow. There will be so much to take away from the conference, and so professionals from all corners of the industry are strongly recommended to make sure they’re part of the conversation on 30 March.”
Together with the Industry Networking Party, the one-day conference will open ahead of Aircraft Interiors Expo (AIX) and World Travel Catering and Onboard Services Expo (WTCE) – the world’s largest exhibitions for cabin interiors, inflight entertainment, travel catering, onboard retail and passenger comfort.
