FLUG REVUE September 2006: High-tech galleys

September 2006

GALLEYS – MORE THAN JUST FLIGHT KITCHENS

By Matthias Gründer

ATLAS is an acronym. It stands for Air France, Iberia (which used to be known by the international airline code of TY), Lufthansa, Alitalia and Sabena. Many years ago these airlines decided to standardise the dimensions of their dinner trays and later, following on from this, to all use the same trolleys and other kitchen installations such as ovens, coffee machines and refrigerated compartments. This agreement in the form of an extensive catalogue was intended to enable reciprocal catering as air traffic grew both in range and passenger capacity, i.e. to enable aircraft to be supplied rapidly and hygienically with meals, drinks and consumer goods.

Today ATLAS is regarded by most airlines as the norm and proves its worth a million times every day. A second standard is the KSSU agreement once agreed between KLM, SAS, Swissair and UTA, whose differences are most apparent from the dimensions of a standard trolley. An ATLAS trolley is 1030mm high, 304mm wide and 810 mm deep, whereas a KSSU trolley is the same width and height, but 848 mm deep. However, this standard is not nearly as widely used.

The agreements were initiated by the vendors of the pertinent onboard fittings, the galleys, as aircraft kitchens are known in the trade. It was back in 1955, the first year of its existence, that the new Deutsche Lufthansa presented its passengers with a world first which distinguished it from its competitors, namely a special aircraft kitchen developed by Sell Haus- und Küchentechnik company of Herborn, Hesse. It was installed in the Super Consolations, and even if individual aircraft types had had kitchen sections in the 1920s, this was the first time that airliners had been equipped as standard with onboard catering facilities for large numbers of passengers.

But this also meant that it would soon no longer be possible to cook on board for an exclusive clientele. The meals had to be prepared on the ground, hygienically packed and kept refrigerated on board so that they could be heated up at the required time. This closed catering chain extended to the crockery, and in 1955, armed with such a service concept, Sell was the first German company in the post-war era to be represented at the Paris Air Show. This led to orders from other airlines, and today galleys are regarded as standard equipment on all passenger aircraft.

“We are now one of the market leaders and on the A380 and the other widebody aircraft we enjoy a market share of over 70 percent. We are also one of the few companies in Germany which are growing and continue to be expanding their workforce,” says marketing director Jürgen Just with pride. This is not least the result of continuous efforts to improve technology and products alike. The overall size of the galleys alone has been significantly reduced over the last few years. In Herborn they have been using honeycomb structures which offer a weight saving of up to 15 percent yet greater resilience for some time.

95 percent of galleys are ordered by the airlines directly from the manufacturers who have an accurate idea of the external design and furnishings. But at the same time everything has to be durable and practical, and here the 15 year guarantee offered by Sell is already a remarkable industry record. “In the old days the in-flight kitchen was kept as far as possible out of sight of the passengers. In those days everything was purely functional and not exactly attractive,” explains Jürgen Just. But since then the airlines have discovered that the galley can serve as a design element, as an integral constituent of the cabin which passengers should not only see but find attractive as well.

Distinctive solutions for every airline

Numerous solution details had to be developed to make the galley distinctive. No detail of a Lufthansa galley must be repeated on the galley of a competitor, every galley is precisely prespecified, for the airline, the aircraft type and the intended use for First, Business or Economy Class. Moreover, production proceeds at the same pace as assembly at the aircraft manufacturer's The galley has to be available at the assembly site at Airbus or Boeing at a precise time, and it must be exactly the right galley for this particular aircraft. When one considers that an A340 or B777 galley has to be installed before the fuselage is closed one can appreciate the knock-on effect that any delay in delivery would mean.

Energy savings also play a major role, yet only very limited power is available on board a passenger aircraft. “For security reasons we do the electrical engineering ourselves,” Jürgen Just stresses. Many customers want espresso machines or rice cookers on top of the standard equipment, and here we have some very tough calculations. With “intelligent power management” it will soon be possible to precisely assign consumption peaks to the millisecond to either the coffee machine or the convection oven for defrosting meals.

In this area, the A380 has brought fresh challenges, since whereas on all the other passenger aircraft a power supply of 115V/400Hz is available, the A380 designers have made cuts in precisely those assemblies which guarantee a steady frequency. Today, all on-board equipment must be capable of working within the fluctuations of a broad frequency band.

It goes without saying that all the loads carried also have to be stowed securely. During testing, the installations must be capable of withstanding 9g in the forward direction and hence need to be secured twice over with primary and secondary latches. And finally, in its catalogue of regulations the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) specifies precisely the access requirements for the compartments and the conditions involved in cleaning them. But however aesthetically pleasing they are, functionality remains the foremost consideration, and that means hot or cold meals served on time for several hundred passengers.

From page 88 of FLUG REVUE 9/2006

Last updated 15 August 2006

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