The biennial Dubai Airshow 2017 was an important event this time around, reports AJAY AWTANEY. The aviation industry was coming off a dry Dubai Airshow 2015, and the region’s airlines were coming through with a rough patch with geopolitical and economic issues of their own. But Dubai Airshow 2017 promised to unveil the Future of Travel, and it was par for the course indeed!
Emirates First Class revealed
First off the bat was Dubai’s home airline, Emirates. Right before the official start of the airshow, Emirates made a big and widely anticipated reveal. The new First Class cabin, which is initially being installed on newly delivered Boeing 777ERs, took a fresh look at First Class travel. Inspired by Mercedes Benz S-Class, the fully enclosed suites with enough space to move around, made the 40 square feet suite a home in the air.
Emirates went off the faux wood and brought on subtler hues, and even installed virtual windows in the central suites which are not aligned to a real window. The HD feeds from outside the plane are even sharper than the real window feeds. If you’d love to be left alone, there is video-calling to order food to crew in the galley, and a full window where you get the food delivered without having to open the suite door through the flight.
But don’t worry if you don’t travel First class. Economy is getting new spacious looking cabins as well.
Boom goes supersonic
Boom Supersonic, a new startup took the mantel at the Dubai Airshow as well, to announce their plans to bring back commercial supersonic flights by 2023. The US-based airframe maker is currently working on a 1:3 scale demonstration aircraft called XB-1 which will be in testing in 2018. The differentiation from Concorde, and why the company thinks they will do one better, is because they are going to employ commercially tested technologies to make a quieter supersonic jet. So, the afterburners of Concorde are being ditched for turbofan power plants. The aluminium bodies will give way to carbon fibre which is lighter.
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