IFSA Seattle Review
The onboard experience
This year’s IFSA in Seattle attracted more than 750 attendees and the exhibition featured 145 stands representing over 100 companies from around the world. It was the largest IFSA exhibition in recent years. Jo Austin reports
Co-located with both the Airline Passenger Experience Association (APEX) and Aircraft Interiors Expo-Americas (AIX), this year’s IFSA gave visitors the opportunity to see products across the entire onboard experience and feedback has been very positive. Mike Fishburn and Paul Norman, chair and
co-chair of the Annual Conference Planning Committee, chose to present the major content of the Conference on Day 1. As a result, delegates attending the event were awarded with an outstanding line-up of speakers covering a wide range of topics. The Exhibition Hall opened on Day 2 and the Conference continued with an excellent talk on Food Trends followed by the Chef’s Competition won by Chef Matt McNutt, from LSG Sky Chefs. As the winner, Chef Matt received a personalised Chef’s jacket and airline tickets provided by Virgin Atlantic Airways. The winning dish will also be boarded on a future British Airways flight.
IFSA Chef’s Competition The celebrity panel of judges for the Chef’s competition comprised Seattle chef and restaurateur Tom Douglas; Dr. Victor Gielisse, associate vp of development with the Culinary Institute of America and Jennifer Sohonie, executive chef and instructor of Seattle Le Cordon Bleu. Chef Bob Rosar was event emcee in his truly entertaining style. The three other talented and dynamic chefs
were Chef Daniel Malzhan, AMTRAK; Chef Shashi Sanamvenkata, Chelsea Food Services; and Chef Farand Lee, Gate Gourmet who created their dishes at Le Cordon Bleu Seattle.
Conference Report IFSA President, Vicky Stennes, recapped IFSA’s activities over the last year and outlined what’s in store. She said the industry “super show” combining IFSA, APEX, and AIX in Seattle allowed for
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companies to see all of their suppliers at once. IFSA is also cultivating a partnership with a new industry association, Asia Pacific On-Board Travel (
APOT.Asia), formed to support the high- growth of the in-flight service industry in the Asia Pacific region. IFSA will partner with APOT to provide the 2012 Asia Pacific Conference in Incheon, South Korea from June 12-14, 2012. Randy Tinseth of Boeing revealed some
fascinating statistics on the growth of air travel with orders exceeding expectations. In his five decade outlook he spoke of 5,000 new planes for China and 13,000 more km of high speed rail lines. He expects China will have 97 new airports by 2020 where there will be the biggest growth. “Almost 50% of all travel will touch Asia, moving away from the current US focus.” Bob Lange of Airbus gave us some worrying
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