Lufthansa Technik (»nice« / nice intellitable): The Design Philosopher
Leave it to the Germans to look at a cabin management system and see not just technology, but a design philosophy problem. Lufthansa Technik’s »nice« platform — yes, lowercase, yes with quotation marks, yes that is intentional — has been a fixture of high-end VIP and business aviation for two decades. But it’s what the team has been doing lately that makes the system genuinely exciting.
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The nice intellitable, unveiled at the Dubai Airshow in late 2025 and integrated into the company’s stunning “The BOW” cabin concept at Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg in spring 2026, is one of those rare product announcements that makes you stop scrolling. The concept is straightforward to describe, staggeringly difficult to execute, and deeply clever: a high-definition touchscreen embedded directly into the surface of a folding tray table.
Not attached to the table. Not clipped onto it. In the surface. The tactile finish — available in wood, carbon fiber, metal, and other materials — looks and feels exactly like a premium tray table surface, right up until the display activates. Flight information, a moving map, seat-adjustment controls, food and beverage ordering, music and video controls, and a digital magazine reader can all be accessed directly from the table. When it’s time to eat, the interface minimizes to a slim edge strip or disappears entirely. The underlying technology, Lufthansa Technik’s Hidden Touch Display, won a Red Dot Design Award in 2025.
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The broader »nice« ecosystem offers 4K HDR content distribution and a software platform designed for continuous updates and personalized passenger experiences. Lufthansa Technik’s differentiation in this space is fundamentally about aesthetics and design intelligence — they’re asking how technology can disappear into a premium cabin rather than announce itself. In the ultra-high-end VVIP market, that restraint is precisely what clients are paying for.
A N D R E A S W I B O W O / R E D C A B I N S U M M I T S - B E R L I N
Issue # 32 MAY, 2026 Globally recognized leader for Jet Cabin Interior News, Trends, and Innovations
a Jet Media LLC company All Rights Reserved
Howard Guy
viewporn@interiorvilla1
P R I V A T E J E T I N T E R I O R S C A P E
Jet Cabin Freshbook LLC - A Jet Media company
All rights reserved
Story by: Melissa Tokoriyama
Special Features Contributor
All rights reserved - JetCabin Freshbook Magazine, a Jet Media Company
Issue 29 / September, 2025
Who We Are
Photo by: Dave Koch
JET CABIN FRESHBOOK Magazine is the world's only all-digital publication focussed entirely on jet interiors. We do not publish broad spectrum aviation news or content. The magazine and it's goals were an outgrowth of our founder's career-long profession as a designer of VVIP aircraft interiors. His singularly focussed goal in establishing JCF Magazine was to present Designers, Completion Centers, Flight Departments and Purchasing Agents with the very latest and most innovative interior related products and services by the top cabin suppliers from around the world. JCF provides in-depth coverage of the latest design trends, new materials, emerging technologies and continually showcases the world's top designers. To this day JCF Magazine maintains the most comprehensive categorized listing of Cabin Supplier Groups - worldwide.
JCF Magazine is also proud to maintain the world's only fully comprehensive global listing of top aviation interior designers from around the world. GLOBAL DESIGN ROSTER was developed exclusively for Operators & Flight Departments in need of design resources as they approach new projects. Each of the more than sixty renown designers have been vetted and most have OEM certifications and other industry accepted credentials and awards.
Our key areas of coverage are: Interior Cabin Design / Cabin hygiene / Cabin management • Food & Galley Service • Completions and Refurbishment / Carpet & Flooring / IFE and CMS / Lavs / Lighting / Seating /Textiles and leather / Trends & Emerging Technologies - and all relevant news directly related to interiors.
Jet Cabin Freshbook Magazine is a Jet Media company . Santa Fe, NM (USA) Founder / Editor: Richard Roseman
info@freshbook.aero ph: +1 (214) 415.3492. Advertising Opportunities Editorial: editorial@freshbook.aero Archive: Past Issues
Gamers simply can't be bothered by latency or less than flawless connectivity.
J O S E P H B U R N S
Branson’s Chainsaw and the Power of Staying the Course
For the public launch of the Upper Class concept, Branson didn’t do a press release. He came on stage in a gold ice-hockey mask and revved up a chainsaw, then proceeded to demolish a mock British Airways business class seat in front of a live audience. Then the Curtains fell. When they came back up, Design Q’s fully illuminated mockup made it’s debut! The press went in…and the photos went global.
Then September 11th happened.
Three years into the program, the world stopped flying. Every airline froze investment overnight. Design Q, which had felt protected by its dual presence in both automotive and aviation, suddenly found itself staring into the same abyss as everyone else. But Branson, to his considerable credit, kept writing cheques.
“He knew that if they stopped the program, they would likely never come back to it,” Guy says. “So he kept putting money in the machine.” By the time the industry began to recover in 2003, Virgin was the only carrier with something genuinely new to show. Every other airline was starting from scratch. Virgin was already finished. “We launched when everybody else was back at the starting gate,” Guy says. “Which was just genius.”
The lesson wasn’t lost on Guy. In a business where everyone defaults to caution when things get turbulent, the boldest move is sometimes to simply keep going.
Honeywell (Ovation Select): The Ecosystem Integrator
Honeywell doesn’t need much of an introduction in aviation — they’re in more cockpits, cabins, and avionics racks than any other single supplier — and their Ovation Select Cabin Management System is the platform of record for a substantial slice of the business jet fleet worldwide. There’s a reason for that.
Where Honeywell earns its reputation is integration. Ovation Select isn’t just a CMS; it’s the connective tissue between the cabin entertainment environment and the aircraft’s broader digital ecosystem. The system pairs natively with Honeywell’s own JetWave Ka-band satellite communications terminal, which means the bridge from in-flight connectivity to cabin entertainment — streaming services, video conferencing, content access — is genuinely seamless. You’re not bolting two systems together and hoping they behave. They were designed to talk to each other.
The system’s hardware suite covers the full range: large cabin monitor displays, region-free HD Blu-Ray, galley and seat touchscreen monitors, Personal Control Units (including Bluetooth-capable options), HDMI/USB ports throughout, and a moving map interface. For super mid-size and large-cabin jets, Ovation Select offers a compelling combination of broad aircraft type coverage, proven reliability, and a deep integration story with the rest of the Honeywell avionics stack.
Honeywell’s competitive advantage here is less about any single eye-catching feature and more about the depth of their aviation ecosystem. When the cabin system, the satcom, and the avionics are all Honeywell, the operator experience — and crucially, the maintenance experience — becomes considerably simpler. In a market where the total cost of ownership matters as much as opening-day impressiveness, that’s a legitimate differentiator.
Courage.
N A V I G A T E / E X P L O R E
T H E M A G A Z I N E
M A I N P A G E
You'll find all of JCF Magazine's primary content right here on our main page. From day one, we sought to put all of our current "issue to issue" stories and features all on the same page. Why? Because it requires no thumbing or linking to other pages to see all of the latest issue. Our subscribers love it and so will you! So for all the newest articles, news, features, ads and more, look no further than our main page
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Just scroll, read, discover and enjoy!
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I N T H I S I S S U E
J A N U A R Y F E A T U R E A R T I C L E S
As with most winners, clean lines and minimalistic themes continued to dominate througout the 2025 awards season. Voltare's entry is a good example of clean, uncluttered design - the stylistic preference of most owners today.
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Continued Below...
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Story by: Martin Waletzko
Business & Go-to-Market Strategist, Founder @ WEYOU
So who are the players? What are they building? And what does “state of the art” actually mean right now? Let’s dig in.
A D D I T I O N A L D E P A R T M E N T S & R E S O U R C E S
C A B I N S U P P L I E R S - W O R L D W I D E
Supplier + contains more than 400 of the top cabin supplier groups around the world. 48 separate categories broken into Design & Technical disciplines. Supplier + is stands as the most comprehensive, fully managed roster in the industry
G L O B A L D E S I G N S T U D I O R O S T E R
Global Design Roster is the world's only managed listing of the top aviation interior designers and architects in the industry, globally. GDR includes not only the renown independents, but the top design chiefs of major completion centers.
C O M P L E T I O N C E N T E R S ( G L O B A L)
Without completion centers, none of the beautiful designs would ever see the light of day. We've compiled a comprehensive global listing of the world's top centers - all for you in helping to source just the right asset for your next project
O W N E R / O P E R A T O R S
NEW!
Brand new, exclusively for our Owner / Operators and Flight Departments. Offering valuable Resources including Shard Articles, Lifestyle, Destinations and our own curated assemblage of Luxury accoutrement from the top brands in the world.
Highly detailed computer guided stitch patters and quilted lumbars are common in today's interiors - and they instantly convey new and fresh
R E C U R I N G S E G M E N T S
You'll find all of JCF Magazine's primary content right here on our main page. From day one, we sought to put all of our current "issue to issue" stories and features all on the same page. Why? Because it requires no thumbing or linking to other pages to see all of the latest issue. Our
You'll find all of JCF Magazine's primary content right here on our main page. From day one, we sought to put all of our current "issue to issue" stories and features all on the same page. Why? Because it requires no thumbing or linking to other pages to see all of the latest issue. Our
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You'll find all of JCF Magazine's primary content right here on our main page. From day one, we sought to put all of our current "issue to issue" stories and features all on the same page. Why? Because it requires no thumbing or linking to other pages to see all of the latest issue. Our
All right here on our main page - each and every issue
Honeywell’s OVATION SELECT Cabin Management System
A curated compilation of some of our favorite awarded designs from 2025.
Jet Aviation - Project CIRRUS / Gulfstream G-700
Lufthansa Technik is introducing “The BOW,” a modular narrowbody cabin concept.
Shown here with LHT's Nice Intellitable Passenger Interface.
There has never been a better time to own a private jet — and not just because of where it can take you, but because of how you feel when you arrive. The latest generation of business aircraft have made amazing strides in passenger well-being, turning the cabin into something closer to a spa than a pressurised tube hurtling through the stratosphere. These strides have been gradual and incremental, so often not noticed.
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Cabin altitude is perhaps the single biggest story here. Where older aircraft typically maintained a cabin altitude of 8,000 feet, many of today's flagships — from the Gulfstream G700 to the Bombardier Global 7500 — bring that figure down to 4,000 feet or below at cruise. The difference is tangible, and the effects remarkable. Lower cabin altitude means higher oxygen levels, reduced fatigue, and far less of that groggy, dehydrated feeling that used to be an unavoidable tax on long-range travel. Your body, quite simply, works less hard to keep you comfortable.
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Lighting has undergone an equally impressive evolution. Circadian-tuned LED systems now shift colour temperature and intensity throughout the flight, gently nudging your body clock in whichever direction you need — whether that means staying sharp for a board meeting on arrival or easing into restful sleep over the Atlantic. It is a small detail with a disproportionately large impact.
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Humidity control, whisper-quiet cabins, advanced air filtration, and ergonomically refined seating round out a picture of genuinely thoughtful engineering. Manufacturers are increasingly consulting physicians, sleep scientists, and nutritionists during the design process — and it shows!
For owners, this translates into something straightforward and deeply valuable: you step off your aircraft feeling like yourself.
In a world where time is the ultimate currency, arriving well is as important as arriving at all.
Richard Roseman -
Publisher / Editor
E D I T O R I A L B E G I N S H E R E
Got something to say? Do you have something newsworthy...something that's about to set the industry on its heels? We're interested in hearing about it. The only thing that makes us relevant and worthy of our subscribers and followers is the content we carry. Our entire reason for being is to bring the FRESH, the latest and greatest and the most useful interior innovations to our readers.
Let us here from you: editorial@freshbook.aero
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Flying High, Feeling Better
When an MRO develops their own IFE/CMS product, they’re not working from a catalog. They’re building from direct, operational experience with what breaks, what clients complain about, what installers curse at, and what operators actually need at two in the morning in Basel.
Jet Aviation (IFX): The MRO That Became a Tech Company
This one deserves a special mention because it represents something genuinely new in the IFE/CMS landscape. Jet Aviation — the global MRO, completions, and charter powerhouse wholly owned by General Dynamics — completed its first installation of a fully in-house developed IFE and CMS system in early 2026, and the industry took note.
The system, called IFX, was developed entirely by Jet Aviation’s own engineers. Built on Crestron hardware and certified to aviation standards, IFX provides a fully customizable interface for passenger address, lighting, audio, video, and any number of custom operator-defined functions. It’s scalable, it’s completely bespoke in its design and functionality, and crucially, it was built by the same people who install and maintain these systems day in and day out.
That last point matters more than it might initially appear. When an MRO develops their own IFE/CMS product, they’re not working from a catalog. They’re building from direct, operational experience with what breaks, what clients complain about, what installers curse at, and what operators actually need at two in the morning in Basel. The IFX system is already expanding across additional MRO and completions projects at Jet Aviation facilities worldwide.
For clients who do their completions work with Jet Aviation, IFX represents a compelling single-vendor argument: one team designed it, one team certified it, one team installs it, and one team supports it. The integration overhead — and the finger-pointing that happens when three vendors meet one problem — largely disappears.
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Continue this article by clicking below...
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V I S I O N
We're Changing The Way You Think About Aviation Magazines
No flip viewrs, no thumbing pages. No zooming to read text, or adjusting scale to see images. Just smooth scrollable content, smartly written feature articles, full width ads from the top companies in the world. Plus excting departments that bring the FRESHEST in new product innovations and rollouts. If it's trending in interiors, you'll find it here. If it's not quite here yet, you'll learn about it before it hits.
And best of all, it's interactive, with video, live links and instant access to the people, products and extended content you're interested in
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The business jet and VIP interior space is incredibly bespoke — it’s where craftsmanship meets aerospace engineering at the absolute highest level. How do you curate a summit experience that serves everyone from the boutique design studio to the tier-one completions center, and still keeps the conversation firing on all cylinders?
The simplest answer is research and connections. I have several trusted individuals within the industry whom I regularly turn to for advice and insight. To name a few: Natalie Rodriguez, Tom Chatfield, Sylvain Mariatt, Jason, Lauren, Grischa Schmidt, and the Greenpoint team.
I owe a great deal to these individuals because, during the research phase of our first event, they provided invaluable feedback and guidance. In fact, their input played a significant role in shaping the event, including helping to develop its name and overall concept.
They also introduced me to many of their key industry contacts, which helped us secure the participation of leading companies such as Bombardier, Gulfstream, Embraer, and AMAC, all of whom have become regular participants at our events.
Beyond making introductions, I asked these industry experts what improvements they would like to see within the sector. Their insights formed the foundation of my research, which I then translated into the key themes and discussion topics featured on the event agenda.
“The hardest stain to get out is a water stain,” he says. “Just think about that.”
Article by
R I C H A R D N. Z I S K I N D
Chief of Staff to the Board of Directors @ Alerion Aviation
JCF Magazine Special Contributor
private jet is often defined by its performance—range, speed, and engineering precision. Yet its true value is not measured at altitude but experienced within the cabin. It is here that the aircraft becomes personal, where utility transforms into experience, and where the asset assumes both tangible and intangible worth. The interior is, unequivocally, the heart and soul of the aircraft.
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"This is where value becomes tangible."
In today’s market, a thoughtfully designed and well-maintained interior is not merely an aesthetic asset, it is a financial one. A modernized cabin can significantly elevate an aircraft’s market position. Refurbished interiors in large-cabin jets such as the Gulfstream G650 or Bombardier Global 7500 routinely command multimillion-dollar premiums over comparable aircraft with dated finishes.
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Collaboration is clearly baked into the RedCabin DNA — your whole ethos is “collaborate to innovate.” In the world of business aviation interiors, where competitive advantage is often fiercely guarded, how do you actually get rival companies in the same room and get them to open up?
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It is quite simple: we have no walls and no barriers preventing people from seeing the innovations being showcased on site. The size of the event also plays an important role. We intentionally limit the number of attendees and carefully curate who can participate. We only admit professionals who are actively involved in the interiors sector, ensuring that every conversation is relevant and valuable.
Meaningful discussions take place because both buyers and suppliers are present at the event. This is a relatively small industry, and I believe RedCabin's role is to create a trusted environment where participants can openly share their challenges, exchange ideas, and explore solutions without venturing into sensitive NDA-protected territory.
By fostering openness, collaboration, and high-quality networking, we enable the industry to learn from one another and accelerate innovation together.
On their website, RedCabin calls us delegates, but when we get on the airplane to go home...it was long standing friends and colleagues we spent time with. Nowhere do you feel that more than at a RedCabin event.
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Let’s start at the very beginning — because origin stories matter. RedCabin launched out of Berlin in 2017. What was the spark? Was there a specific moment when someone said, “the aircraft interiors world needs this kind of gathering,” and what did that look like on a napkin?
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Founded by Monica Wick, RedCabin was established in 2017. We have a clear focus on the transport interiors industry summits and events. Our areas of event expertise include automotive, business jet and VIP aviation, aircraft cabins, vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft, railway interiors, and yacht interiors
Interiors are close to our hearts because, as frequent travelers, we see many opportunities for improvement. One way to drive progress is by bringing together the entire value chain, enabling the industry to stay informed about the latest innovations and fostering collaboration among stakeholders to create better solutions for the future.
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The name “RedCabin” is memorable and a little mysterious. What’s the story behind it, and how does it reflect what you’re actually trying to do inside the industry?
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When we chose the name, our primary focus was on the aircraft and automotive industries. At the time, we did not anticipate that we would expand so rapidly into other areas of expertise.
The name "Cabin" is an abbreviation for Car Aviation Business Intelligent Network. The word "Red" symbolizes resilience and bravery. As a young company entering a highly competitive market, we needed to be resilient to grow, compete, and establish ourselves within the industry.
The Emotional Dimension
Beyond performance metrics and financial consideration lies a more intangible truth: the interior is where the aircraft becomes meaningful.
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RedCabin has hosted summits in some genuinely iconic locations — Vienna, Abu Dhabi, Hamburg, and now heading to Dewey Beach, Delaware for 2026 with ALOFT AeroArchitects as host. How intentional is the venue selection, and how much does the physical environment shape the quality of the conversations that happen inside it?
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Aloft has been a strong supporter of the Business Jet and VIP Interior Summit and has attended the event since its inception. The company is home to several highly respected industry experts, including Colby and Harry, who are influential voices within the business aviation community. In addition, Aloft is a well-established and trusted brand in private aviation, making them an ideal partner for the summit.
Dewey Beach is also an excellent location for the event. Not only is Aloft opening its doors to the entire industry—including competitors—but attendees will also have the opportunity to participate in a number of aircraft static displays on Day 3.
I believe that aircraft static displays are an important part of any business jet interiors event, as they allow delegates to experience design, craftsmanship, and innovation firsthand. The opportunity to access these aircraft and gain valuable insights into the latest interior developments is a significant benefit for attendees. With Aloft's support in making this possible, I believe it is well worth traveling from Europe to Dewey Beach to take part in the experience.
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Walk us through what a RedCabin Business Jet & VIP Interior Innovation Summit actually feels like. From the moment delegates arrive to the final session — what’s the energy, the format, and what makes it so distinctly different from anything else on the calendar?
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The Business Jet and VIP Interior Summit brings together the entire industry value chain, including owners’ representatives, aircraft manufacturers, completion centers, designers, suppliers, and emerging talent. Our goal is to be recognized as the industry's meeting place—a platform where professionals can connect, exchange ideas, collaborate, and ultimately do business.
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Unlike large trade shows that attract thousands of attendees, we intentionally keep the summit exclusive, limiting attendance to approximately 250–300 delegates. This creates an environment where participants can enjoy meaningful face-to-face interactions with both existing and prospective clients. We are also committed to supporting diversity within the industry. As part of this commitment, we host our Women in Aviation event prior to the start of the summit.
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The event offers numerous networking opportunities, including speed networking sessions where suppliers meet directly with buyers and have the opportunity to deliver a one-minute elevator pitch. Additional networking takes place during lunch and coffee breaks, as well as at the evening reception on the first day.
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One of our unique selling points is our interactive afternoon workshops. These sessions provide delegates with the opportunity to engage in open discussions, identify key industry challenges, and explore potential solutions together. This level of collaboration and candid dialogue is rarely possible at larger trade shows, making the summit a truly valuable experience for all attendees.
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Here’s the philosophical one — and we think your answer matters a lot to this industry right now. We’re living in an era where the mega trade shows — your NBBAs, your EBACs, your AIX Hamburg — are still pulling massive footprints, but something’s clearly shifting. Boutique, curated forums like RedCabin seem to be gaining serious ground and real loyalty. Why do you think that is? Is it about depth over breadth? Signal over noise? Or is there something deeper going on in how professionals want to connect and do business today?
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Quality is at the heart of everything we do. We create high-quality programs that address the topics and challenges that matter most to the industry. Our boutique event concept also makes the summit more exclusive, creating an environment where meaningful networking can take place naturally.
At large trade shows, it can be difficult to meet decision-makers from aircraft manufacturers and completion centers, as they are often busy managing their booths and engaging with a large number of suppliers. In contrast, the RedCabin Summit creates a more intimate, family-like atmosphere where delegates can connect through networking sessions, evening receptions, workshops, and informal conversations over drinks.
We also pride ourselves on delivering a highly personalized experience. The RedCabin team welcomes attendees from the moment they register and remains available throughout the event to provide support, including helping delegates make valuable industry connections. Together with our event partners, we work hard to ensure that attendees not only gain business value but also enjoy the experience.
This relaxed and welcoming environment is one of the key reasons people return year after year. When attendees feel valued, build meaningful relationships, and have a positive experience, they become ambassadors for the event and help spread the word throughout the industry.
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Continue this article by clicking below...
A Teenage Hustle with Legendary Customers
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At 15 or 16 years old, most kids are figuring out their weekend plans. David Allen was figuring out payroll. He launched a mobile wash and detailing business while still in high school, and his proximity to the Speedway meant his earliest clients were anything but ordinary. He found himself washing motorhomes and vehicles for the likes of AJ Foyt, Mario Andretti, Rick Mears, Johnny Rutherford and the Unsers, Big Al, Bobby, and Little Al, a true who’s who of motorsport royalty.
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He got that kind of access through a connection with the Hulman-George family, the dynasty that owned and operated Indianapolis Motor Speedway for decades.
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“I grew up with the Hulman-George family,” David recalls. “They helped me get my credentials to go to other race tracks.” He got to know the legends personally, including the notoriously gruff AJ Foyt, who turned out to be something of a surprise. “He seemed very aggressive in public settings and in front of the media,” David says with a grin in his voice. “He had this big bark. But, in reality, he was a teddy bear, a prince of a guy.”
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By 16, David had employees of his own and was traveling across the country. The entrepreneurial bug had bitten hard.
Article by
R I C H A R D R O S E M A N
N
othing starts without a design...and nothing commands our attention like a great one. But a design, like the product of any creative endeavour, is ultimately judged by the pair of eyes looking at it. Yet within the framework of a design competition or an open evaluation conducted by hundreds, or even thousands, it's almost inevitable that one or two designs will find favor, over the others, among a large portion of that audience. Does it mean those designs are better? It's an unanswerable question of course. But it certainly means those few designs are standing out, again and again - above the rest - by those who have been asked to evaluate them.
In this piece, we took a look back at the winners of several globally recognized aviation design competitions - and selected some of our own favorites to show as some of the "best of the best" designs, by some of the top interior architects and designers over 2025.
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We hope you like our internally curated selection of interior cabin concepts. We recognize your own preferences may not align with ours completely - but certainly we can all agree that beautiful design is a remarkable thing to behold - and always worth a second look!
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From Racetracks to Runways
After studying at Indiana University, David kept the mobile wash business going, but a new obsession was taking hold. He had always wanted to be a pilot. And as it turned out, his detailing clients were increasingly aircraft owners.
One customer had a Beech Bonanza. The next had an MU2 and the third owned and flew a Beechcraft Starship. This lead to taking care of a demo fleet of King Airs. A seasoned demo pilot on that account, “a tough old bird,” as David fondly describes him, pushed David to raise his standards significantly. Aviation detailing, it turned out, was a world unto itself: technically demanding, unforgiving of shortcuts, and full of clients who noticed everything.
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The pivotal moment came when David submitted a bid to NetJets, at the time one of the fastest-growing fractional ownership companies in the world. He was invited to Columbus, met the leadership team, and landed the account. What followed was a period of rapid expansion: Orlando, then Atlanta, then across the country, until The Allen Groupe represented a remarkable 71% of NetJets’ entire cleaning budget. Then came another invitation by NetJets, Europe.
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The Science Hiding in Your Carpet
Ask David Allen about aircraft cleaning and he will not just talk about elbow grease. He will talk about chemistry. Specifically, he will talk about pH, and he will make you realize just how much damage a bottle of household cleaner can do to a $40,000 carpet, or a $2 million interior.
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His guiding framework is something he calls TACT: Time, Agitation, Chemical, and Temperature. It is the same set of principles your grandmother applied when doing dishes, hot soapy water, a good soak, some scrubbing, just applied with scientific precision to silk upholstery and wool carpeting worth more per square foot than most people’s furniture.
“When you throw dishes in a dishwasher, it boosts up the heat, adds the cleanser, tries to do some agitation with the jets, but, as we know, it doesn’t always quite get it clean,” he explains.
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“Nothing cleans like hand cleaning. Mom is always right.”
Fontainebleau Aviation
“The right light at altitude doesn’t just set a mood — it rewires how your brain processes the journey. It’s the difference between arriving depleted and arriving luminous.”
LED: The Revolution Nobody Saw Coming
Twenty years ago, the aviation lighting world was stuck in a distinctly unglamorous rut. Halogen and fluorescent fixtures ruled the cabin. They were hot, they burned out constantly, they guzzled power, and — this is the part that should make any design-conscious owner shudder — they offered exactly zero ability to dim, tune, or transform. What you saw was what you got. And what you got was… fine. Just fine. Terrible, actually.
Then came LED, and the whole game changed overnight. Modern aircraft-grade LED systems run cooler, consume dramatically less power (important when your cabin entertainment systems and galley equipment are competing for electrons), and last for tens of thousands of hours. But the real magic isn’t longevity or efficiency. The real magic is tunability.
Today’s LED fixtures in premium jets can slide across the full visible spectrum with buttery precision. They can go from a blazing 6500K daylight to a smoldering 1800K fire-pit glow. They can blush rose gold for a dinner party at 39,000 feet. They can pulse a gentle violet that honestly has no business being as chic as it is. (Please don’t overuse the violet. You know who you are.)
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By: R I C H A R D R O S E M A N
Editor / Features
There are materials that whisper luxury, and materials that shout it. Leather does it with scent. Burl walnut does it with grain. Stainless steel, if we're being honest, has historically done neither — content to play the supporting role: the galley fixture, the lavatory basin, the part you clean but never really notice.
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Stainless Art Kyoei wants to change that conversation entirely.
Based in Japan, SAK has spent decades mastering the art and science of precision stainless steel fabrication — not the industrial-cold, fingerprint-magnet variety that gives the material its unglamorous reputation, but something altogether different: surfaces finished with hammered tsuchime textures, vibration patterns, and hand-etched detail that evoke the same devotion to craft found in a Japanese sword-maker's workshop. It is steel that catches the light gently. Steel that feels warm to the touch. Steel that, in the right hands, belongs in the same sentence as the finest materials on earth.
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Now, in collaboration with interior design firm Altea, SAK is making a deliberate move into the business aviation market — and the timing may be exactly right. As today's ultra-high-net-worth jet owners push their completions teams toward more distinctive, more personal, and frankly more interesting material palettes, stainless steel — handled with this level of artistry — presents a genuinely compelling alternative to the plated metals and coated finishes that have dominated cabin metalwork for decades.
bright, blue-enriched light (like sunlight) in the morning to boost alertness and dim, warm-toned light (red or amber) in the evening to facilitate melatonin production.
Courtesy of: Collins Aerospace
Aircraft LED lighting assemblies come in just about every shape and size imaginable - and what all of them have in common is that they can be controlled across the entire visible color temperature spectrum and brighness.
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But of course the big win is that they produce essentially no heat and outlast incandescent or halogens by 25 times - an average of 50,000 hours.
The wonderfully sublime distinction of handcrafted stainless steel
I M P E R I A L J A P A N E S E A R T I S T R Y
Article by
R I C H A R D R O S E M A N
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othing starts without a design...and nothing commands our attention like a great one. But a design, like the product of any creative endeavour, is ultimately judged by the pair of eyes looking at it. Yet within the framework of a design competition or an open evaluation conducted by hundreds, or even thousands, it's almost inevitable that one or two designs will find favor, over the others, among a large portion of that audience. Does it mean those designs are better? It's an unanswerable question of course. But it certainly means those few designs are standing out, again and again - above the rest - by those who have been asked to evaluate them.
In this piece, we took a look back at the winners of several globally recognized aviation design competitions - and selected some of our own favorites to show as some of the "best of the best" designs, by some of the top interior architects and designers over 2025.
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We hope you like our internally curated selection of interior cabin concepts. We recognize your own preferences may not align with ours completely - but certainly we can all agree that beautiful design is a remarkable thing to behold - and always worth a second look!
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Story by: Melissa Tokoriyama
Special Features Contributor
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INSTALLMENT
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The Evening Hours: Where the Magic Is
If there’s one time of day when aircraft lighting truly separates the extraordinary from the merely expensive, it’s the evening flight. As darkness gathers outside and the cabin becomes a sealed world of its own, every photon matters. The way the warm light catches the stitching on a bespoke leather chair. The way an indirect cove-lit ceiling transforms a fuselage into a sanctuary. The way a well-programmed transition from dinner scene to sleep scene feels less like a setting change and more like the world itself slowing down for you.
This is the alchemy that great lighting design achieves. It’s not decoration. It’s not a luxury add-on you can skip to save weight. It’s the invisible framework that holds the entire experience together. Get it wrong, and no amount of Italian marble flooring or custom-milled cabinetry will save you. Get it right, and your passengers won’t be able to explain why the cabin feels so impossibly good — why the vibe is so spot on. They’ll only know that it does.
In an industry where every detail is scrutinized and every gram of weight is justified, lighting remains one of the highest-ROI investments you can make. It transforms a tube of aluminum hurtling through the stratosphere into something that genuinely feels like a destination in its own right.
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Light it well. Light it thoughtfully. And for the love of all that is tasteful — please program those scene transitions with a slowwww fade. Nobody needs a mood change that snaps like a gymnasium overhead coming on at full blast. You’re not at a concert. You’re at 45,000 feet. It's evening. Dial in your vibe!
Color Temperature. The Dial Nobody Talks About
Here’s a concept that separates the aviation design pros from the amateurs: color temperature. Measured in Kelvin (K), it determines whether your light feels like a blazing noon sun or a warm candle flickering on a mahogany table. Most people never consciously think about it. On the other hand, every great lighting designer thinks about almost nothing else.
For private jet cabins, the magic zone tends to live between 2200K and 3000K in the evening hours — that honeyed, amber-kissed warmth that makes everyone look like they have a permanent glow-up. It’s flattering. It’s relaxing. It whispers “you’ve arrived” without saying a single word. Bump it up to 4000K or 5000K for the morning departure, and suddenly the cabin snaps to attention — crisp, focused, ready for that pre-landing briefing.
T H E C E N T E R S
Another first for JCF Magazine. THE CENTERS is a brand new permanent resource with its own dedicated page. A comprehensive listing of the top completion centers - worldwide - plus additional independent completion management resources to help owner / opearators and private flight departments make iformed decisons.
Image courtesy VIP Completions
TECH SPOTLIGHT: Latest LED Innovations in Top-Tier Private Jet Builds
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Micro-OLED ceiling panels that replicate natural sky transitions, including sunrise and sunset sequences timed to your destination time zone
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Circadian rhythm programming — automatically adjusting temperature and intensity to prepare your body clock for landing
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Haptic-responsive surfaces that shift color temperature in response to cabin noise levels or passenger heart rate (via wearables integration)
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Addressable LED strips embedded invisibly in sill rails, crown panels, and cabinetry with sub-millimeter precision
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Quantum dot LED technology delivering unprecedented color accuracy across a CRI of 98+ (essentially indistinguishable from natural light)
There is nothing quite as relaxing as the whisper of twin Rolls-Royce BR-700 jet engines at cruise, looking down on a thick layer of buttermilk clouds painted in the soft glow of the moon's reflected light.
The only way that gets any better, is to have the cabin's lighting scene dialed into the very same vibe. When it's right, it approaches nirvana.
Lighting Scenes: Your Cabin, Your Rules
The concept of a “lighting scene” is essentially a saved preset — a curated combination of intensity, color temperature, and zone activation that you can summon with a single tap. Think of it as a Spotify playlist, but for the atmosphere of your aircraft. Your integrator programs them in advance; you trigger them on demand via tablet, touchscreen, voice command, or increasingly, AI-driven automation that reads the room and makes adjustments without being asked.
A typical luxury configuration might include something like this:
Pre-Departure
Bright, neutral whites. Cabin awake and functional. Everyone can see what they’re doing.
4500K — 100% intensity
Cruise & Relax
Warm amber wash, dimmed perimeter strips. Conducive to reading, conversation, unwinding.
2700K — 55% intensity
Dinner Aloft
Candlelight-adjacent warmth, table-focused down-lighting. Michelin-star energy, 40,000 feet up.
2200K — 40% intensity
Sleep Mode
Near-darkness with the softest warm bias glow at floor level. Melatonin-friendly. Circadian-aware.
1900K — 8% intensity
The best systems today — from brands like Astronics, Diehl Aviation, and boutique integrators like Lufthansa Technik’s VIP division — layer these scenes with geo-awareness. The cabin literally knows where you are in the world and what time it is at your destination, autonomously dialing in the most circadian-friendly environment to help you land ready, not wrecked. That’s not sci-fi. That’s Tuesday in the Gulfstream G700.
There’s a particular kind of frustration reserved exclusively for private aviation — and it doesn’t involve ATC delays or catering mix-ups. It’s the sinking feeling you get when you’ve just signed off on a multi-million-dollar cabin refurbishment, your beautiful new IFE/CMS system is certified, installed, and humming along… and six months later something shinier, faster, and more jaw-dropping has already appeared on the market. Welcome to the perpetual motion machine that is in-flight entertainment and cabin management technology.
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​Here’s the hard truth: IFE/CMS may be the single most rapidly evolving category in the entire aircraft interiors world. Avionics? Relatively stable. Seating? Incremental. But cabin management and entertainment systems? These things move at consumer-electronics speed inside an industry that certifies everything at aerospace pace. The result is a fascinating, occasionally maddening, thoroughly impressive technological arms race — and the beneficiaries are ultimately the passengers sitting in those extraordinarily expensive leather chairs.
In 2003, to promote Virgin Atlantic's new upper-class luxury services (specifically the world's longest fully flatbed), Richard Branson wore a hockey mask and wielded a chainsaw to cut up airplane seats, symbolizing his efforts to "cut down" the competition.
It was part of his aggressive, often humorous, marketing tactics against his main rival, British Airways, in the early days of Virgin Atlantic.
“We can make your carpet look 100% better, but that doesn’t necessarily mean 100% back to new. But hopefully I can save you the $40,000 it will take to replace it.”
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Guy’s team said: “Let’s figure it out.” Virgin Atlantic became the world’s first airline to fit airbags in the main cabin. Which is either a testament to what happens when car people and aviation dreamers collide — or proof that Richard Branson will greenlight almost anything if you frame it correctly.
Mockup Mastery. How Design Q Rewrote the Rules of Full-Scale Aviation Mockups.
Chainsaw-wielding rockstars, last-minute three-day seat builds, and a mockup that sold itself for ten million dollars more than planned. Howard Guy, CEO of DQD&P, has had one of the most improbable careers in aviation design — and he’s only just getting started.
Cars, Concepts, and a Call from Richard Branson
Howard Guy didn’t come to aviation through the usual door. He came through the garage. Trained in industrial design with a background steeped in car culture, Guy founded Design Q with the mindset of an automotive studio — fast concepts, tight timelines, obsessive attention to fit and finish. What he didn’t know was that this seemingly sideways approach would eventually make him one of the most distinctive voices in aircraft interior design.
How Design Q Rewrote the Rules of Full-Scale Aviation Mockups.
“In a car studio, you come up with a concept and then you have to show what it looks like pretty quickly,” Guy explains. “You’ve basically got to build a show car. And everything is driven by program timing.” That mentality — sign-off first, questions later — would serve him unexpectedly well in the world of commercial aviation.
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Design Q’s first major aviation didn’t know where we were going — which is the fun.”
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The fun, as it turned out, included airbags. Not on the runway. On the seats. When Virgin’s famously rule-averse young team asked why you couldn’t put airbags in aircraft the way cars had them, most people in the industry would have chuckled and moved on. Guy’s team said: “Let’s figure it out.” Virgin Atlantic became the world’s first airline to fit airbags in the main cabin. Which is either a testament to what happens when car people and aviation dreamers collide — or proof that Richard Branson will greenlight almost anything if you frame it correctly.
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commission arrived via a party invitation. Literally. Guy had thrown a launch event for a sports car the studio had been working on, and Virgin Atlantic executives turned up. They saw the car, loved the craft, and came back with a question that would change everything: “Can you build something for us?
Winning Bombardier — Against Ferrari. Against Porsche. Against Mercedes
By the mid-2000s, Design Q had added Cathay Pacific to its portfolio and built out a certified aviation trim shop. When Bombardier came looking for a consultancy to redesign the flight deck of their Global XRS business jet, they were seeking firms with automotive experience and sensibilities. They targeted five: Design Q, and the design studios of Ferrari, Porsche, Maserati, and Mercedes-Benz.
Not exactly a fair fight, on paper. But Design Q had something the others didn’t: they’d actually done it before. They were steeped in automotive to be sure - but their feet were now wet in aviation.
Guy’s pitch was audacious. He told Bombardier he wanted to change the flight deck from its standard cold military blue-grey to a warm grey — “Bentley expensive,” as he put it, rather than “cold, uninviting military.” The response from certain Bombardier engineers was predictably enthusiastic: “Absolutely not. Certification. Multiple suppliers. Three or four years.” The usual aviation hurdle course (a.k.a. corporate excuses).
Then something unusual happened. An email arrived from a Bombardier senior figure named Grant Partridge — who, as it turned out, had attended exactly the same university as Guy, in exactly the same industrial design programme, finishing in 1978 just as Guy was arriving to take his seat in the same lectures. “What are the chances,” Guy recalls. “It was serendipitous.”
The connection gave Guy a foothold, if only psycological. And when the proposals were all laid out on a table — including a last-minute re-submission from Bombardier’s own in-house design team, who had been told their first effort wasn’t good enough — it was Design Q’s renders and animations that Bombardier’s team agreed was the most extensive, the most realistic and the likely the most buildable.
So, what happened? The other agencies were let go. So too, albeit quietly, was their in-house studio.
“We’d won it,” Guy says, “but we didn’t realise they’d just fired everybody in the blinking studio.”
Photo: Leopold Fiala -leopoldfiala.com
Design is not decoration. It is a strategic tool to shape growth and define the future
T H O M A S D E L U S S A C
“ On the Virgin project, Nobody knew what the interior was going to be,” Guy recalls with a grin. “We didn’t know what it was going to be - which is the fun part!
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Design Q also ended up as co-patent holders on the original Upper Class suite — Virgin’s signature hybrid between first and business class. The original brief had been simply to produce a concept. But because Design Q had a habit of actually building things, one concept led to a mockup, the mockup led to a full 38-foot cabin section of a 747, and that cabin section was so convincing it reportedly still appears on Virgin’s official website today. “That was 2003,” Guy notes. “And it’s our model.”
If the Van Der Rohe chair pictured above is iconic, then the Eames chair is in the stratosphere. Pretty much every designer I know has one of these in their living room or studio. They exude cool and they are inarguably the most comfortable lounger in history.
There's NO man who doesn't want one of these on their airplane! Unfortunately, there is also NO regulatory agency that's going to let that happen. But, since certified aircraft chair frames are relatively thin to begin with, we could be getting close in the not-too-distant future.
Concept : DE LUSSAC Studio
Leather Yokes, Sheepskin Seats, and a Hug from the President
The Global Vision Flight Deck project that followed is, by any measure, a Design Q highlight reel. Everything was redesigned from first principles, with an automotive lens. The Yoke — historically a cast aluminium-and-nylon affair across the industry — was reborn as a hand-stitched, leather-wrapped yoke with double stitching and a central boss, looking for all the world like a luxury steering wheel.
“When you see the yoke, that’s where your focus is,” Guy says. “Because it’s double-stitched. It’s got a boss in the middle. It’s starting to look a million dollars. And they freaked out.” In a good way, he adds.
The pilot seats were trimmed in carefully patterned sheepskin — not the saggy elastic-stretched seat covers that had been the industry norm, but precision-patterned, CNC-machined, properly manicured sheepskin with controlled thickness and temperature regulation. Carbon fibre appeared on the grab rails. The cold, utilitarian grey gave way to a rich, warm tone that made the cockpit feel, as Guy had sold, like stepping into a Bentley.
The unveiling at the NBAA Atlanta convention was a triumph. Pilots loved it — this was, after all, their space — and Bombardier’s president, who had seen almost nothing of the project beforehand (the whole thing had been kept to a circle of six people), viewed the Full size nose section of the Global, boarded the steps and viewed the new Global Vision Flight Deck. His smile said it all!
For Guy, a man whose studio had competed against Ferrari & Porsche design and won, this ranked as, well…a moment to remember! Something to be proud of.
“And that’s the buzz of it,” he concludes.
Continue this article below...
There are origin stories, and there are origin stories. David Allen’s begins in Speedway, Indiana, a town whose name alone tells you something about its priorities, where he grew up in the shadow of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. His high school mascot was the Spark Plugs. A character named Sparky jogged around the football field. It was, by his own admission, a little embarrassing.
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But that quirky Midwestern upbringing planted the seed for one of the most quietly impressive entrepreneurial journeys in general aviation. Today, David is the founder of The Allen Groupe, a premier aircraft detailing and cleaning company that at its peak spanned 37 locations in the United States and 16 in Europe, counting NetJets, VistaJet, Cirrus Aircraft, and JSX among its most prominent clients.
Concept : DE LUSSAC Studio
”There is nothing more stunning to look at than an all-white interior. Unfortunately, that's about all it takes to dirty and stain them."
Design is not decoration.
It is a strategic tool to shape growth and define the future
- T H O M A S D E L U S S A C
The DELOS Company - American Made Aircraft Carpet
The human race is enriched with palates as singular as the stars. Its mystery lies in how we as individuals experience the distinct notes of sweet flavors and zest, making us ponder on questions such as, what causes one palate to be more attracted to savories and another more to sweet? What makes us desire savories such as nuts with a cocktail drink and a chocolate with a dessert? Perhaps it is the palate that has been endowed with this secret gift of understanding this mystery in the pairing of flavors.
Through the years, luxury brands have sought to seduce and placate their customers’ tastes and desires for these sweets and savories with artistic design and accouterments that heighten the visual senses. Candy bowls, and canisters, pairing dishes and dessert bowls raising the inflections, rhythm and cadence in the palate, akin to a symphony.
Luxury British heritage brands such as Fortnum and Mason with its origin in 1707 and Cartwright and Butler in the 1900s share their distinct heritage of English tea biscuits in the most elegant vessels. A plethora of exquisite candy bowls have entered this growing market showcasing the simple candy bowl transformed into a work of art.
S W E E T A L T I T U D E
confectionary pairings for airborne indulgence
Read my July installment here
When you open the door to the Lou Hansell Bespoke studio, the possibilities begin. Our artisans and designers have selected a palette of exquisite materials, with 51 shades of ltalian leathers, five metal and inner trim pairings, and personalization options. Driven by their boundless creativity, they combine their talents and craftsmanship to create pieces you’ll cherish forever.
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T H O M A S C H A T F I E L D
Concept : DE LUSSAC Studio
Over the past two decades, De Lussac Design Studio has developed a distinctive trajectory, shaped by a constant dialogue between design, industry, and innovation. Founded in Paris in 2000 by Thomas de Lussac, the studio was built on an early understanding of international markets and manufacturing processes, giving it a pragmatic and production-oriented approach from the outset.
In its early years, the studio focused on furniture and objects, collaborating with French manufacturers and editors, notably through long-standing partnerships such as Roche Bobois in the 2000s. This period established its signature—clear lines, structural thinking, and a balance between creativity and technical feasibility.
As its practice evolved, the studio expanded into new territories, including luxury goods, mobility, and high-tech industries. This diversification led to the development of a multidisciplinary methodology, where design is approached as a coherent system rather than a collection of isolated objects.
Today, with more than 300 projects completed, De Lussac Design Studio continues to explore new frontiers.
Its recent involvement in hydrogen mobility and the launch of an aviation design division (entrusted to Arthur Thery, a former designer at Jet Aviation) reflect a natural progression, applying its vision to environments where performance, innovation, and refinement must coexist seamlessly.
P H I L O S P H Y /
A S S O C I A T I O N / I N Q U I R Y
The agency’s philosophy is to place design at the heart of its clients’ strategy and use it as a growth driver. The tools employed in its design approach include market analysis, design thinking, ergonomics, user experience, and design-to-cost methodologies.
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Since its founding, DE LUSSAC has had the privilege of collaborating, in France and internationally, with companies such as Bell & Wyson, La Poste, AFF Mobilier Urbain, Davidoff, Ellip6, La Pierre de France, and Roche Bobois, on more than 200 projects.
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The agency publishes its own collection under the T2L brand, which is sold in 37 countries.
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LEARN MORE AT : www.delussac.fr
INQUIRIES: contact@delussac.fr
VOTING OPPORTUNITY / INTERNATIONAL YACHT & AVIATION AWARDS
Design DE LUSSAC is a shortlisted finalists in the 2026 Design et al - Yacht & Aviation Awards For more information or if you would like to vote for
design DE LUSSAC, visit https://thedesignawards.co.uk/voting/
B E N E T T I
A B O U T T H O M A S D E L U S S A C
B L U E O D Y S S E Y
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Interior Design Concept, Airbus A350-1000
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Blue Odyssey is a private jet interior design concept inspired by Homer’s Odyssey, both a reference
to travel and a metaphor for transformation. Like Ulysses’ journey, simultaneously physical and
introspective, the project explores the triple dimension of flight:
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- the outward journey across horizons,
- the inner journey toward reflection and renewal,
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- and a promenade within the aircraft itself, conceived as a voyage from island to island.
The concept introduces the aesthetics of yachting into long-range private aviation, translating
maritime sophistication into a contemporary and refined airborne architecture. Fluid lines inspired
by classic yachts structure the space and encourage natural circulation. Hand-finished woods,
polished chrome, and sustainable leathers create a timeless material palette, set in dialogue with
the technological precision of the A350.
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Blue is one of the project’s defining signatures. Rarely used in private aviation interiors, it becomes
here both a spatial and emotional language. Expressed through deep tones and subtle gradients, it
creates an immersive continuity between sky and sea while conveying confidence, stability, and
serenity, essential qualities in flight.
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The cabin is conceived as a mobile sanctuary where each space becomes a port of call. Light,
discreetly modulated, accompanies the journey, and highlights volumes
without ever dominating them.
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More than an interior, Blue Odyssey is a spatial narrative where craftsmanship, emotion, and
Innovation converges to transform the private jet into a personal odyssey.
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Founded in 2000 by Thomas de Lussac, De Lussac Design Studio is a multidisciplinary agency renowned for its innovative and elegant creations in automotive, furniture, luxury goods, and high-tech fields. Multi-awarded internationally, the studio delivers creative solutions blending innovation, functionality, and aesthetics.
Over the past year, the studio has expanded its scope with the launch of a dedicated aviation design division, focusing on private jet interiors and advanced mobility concepts. This evolution reflects a natural extension of its expertise, applying its rigorous design approach to the highly demanding world of aviation.
With more than 300 projects completed for prestigious clients, De Lussac Design Studio has developed a distinctive methodology where design is approached as a system rather than an isolated object. Each project is defined by a careful balance between technical precision and refined simplicity, with particular attention to materials, proportions, and user experience.
From mobility to bespoke interiors, the studio explores design as a means to anticipate new ways of living and moving, shaping contemporary objects with a clear and enduring vision.
Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to update the font, size and more. To change and reuse text themes, go to Site Styles.
Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to update the font, size and more. To change and reuse text themes, go to Site Styles.
Where the Cabin Interior World Comes to Think.
A conversation with Mr. Andreas Wibowo, RedCabin’s Director of Business Development on RedCabin summits reshaping of business aviation interiors
Winch Design, headquartered in London, is the studio owners reach for when they want a yacht that feels as cohesive as a great building — where the exterior silhouette, the deck arrangement, and the intimacy of a private stateroom are conceived as a single, sustained idea. Synonymous with visionary creativity and holistic craftsmanship, Winch's portfolio includes the 133-metre Al Mirqab and the Art Deco-inspired Phoenix 2 — icons where sophistication and innovation are inseparable. The studio has also partnered with Oceanco to create concept Reverie and with Feadship on Fusion, demonstrating a rare ability to work at the frontier of what yards and technology can deliver. Andrew Winch and his team understand, perhaps better than anyone, that scale is not the enemy of warmth — that a 90-metre vessel can still feel like a home.
Thomas de Lussac is a French designer whose journey stands apart from conventional paths. Born in Paris in 1967 and raised between the countryside of the Loire Valley and a creative family environment, he developed an early sensitivity to materials, space, and craftsmanship. His father, a forestry expert, and his mother, an interior designer, both contributed to shaping his perception of form and structure.
Unlike many of his peers, Thomas de Lussac did not attend a design school. A self-made designer, he built his approach independently, guided by observation, experimentation, and a strong entrepreneurial mindset. After studying international marketing in San Francisco, he first entered the design world through export and distribution, gaining a practical understanding of products, markets, and manufacturing.
He began creating his own pieces in the late 1990s, before establishing his studio in 2000. Since then, his work has evolved across multiple fields, driven by a consistent vision: to develop design that is both meaningful and grounded in real-world use, shaped as much by experience as by intuition.
Thomas de Lussac - Founder / Director
Article by
R I C H A R D R O S E M A N
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K, so picture this: You've just shown up at the completion center to take delivery of your $85ML state-of-the-art business jet with an avionics and connectivity package that would make SpaceX jealous, plus enough range to fly non-stop to almost anywhere your heart desires. You step aboard your freshly minted jet and spy the beautifully upholstered VIP seats with the Italian leathers and plated metal trims you chose months earlier with your designer.
But over the course of the next hour or so, as you sit in your chair anticipating the maiden flight back home, an ever so slight, and not entirely unfamiliar disappointment, begins to tug at you. Why is it that after all these decades, four previous aircraft, and stratospheric costs, the seat's comfort still falls way short of what you enjoy at home? Instead, both the rigid profile and the comfort feels like it was designed during the Reagan administration—because, quite possibly, it was.
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Welcome to one of aviation's most puzzling paradoxes: Why do VIP aircraft seats lag so dramatically behind the ergonomic marvels we enjoy in our living rooms, offices, and even our cars? It's a question that haunts aircraft owners, frustrates completion centers, and keeps chiropractors in business from Teterboro to Dubai.
othing starts without a design...and nothing commands our attention like a great one. But a design, like the product of any creative endeavour, is ultimately judged by the pair of eyes looking at it. Yet within the framework of a design competition or an open evaluation conducted by hundreds, or even thousands, it's almost inevitable that one or two designs will find favor, over the others, among a large portion of that audience. Does it mean those designs are better? It's an unanswerable question of course. But it certainly means those few designs are standing out, again and again - above the rest - by those who have been asked to evaluate them.
In this piece, we took a look back at the winners of several globally recognized aviation design competitions - and selected some of our own favorites to show as some of the "best of the best" designs, by some of the top interior architects and designers over 2025.
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We hope you like our internally curated selection of interior cabin concepts. We recognize your own preferences may not align with ours completely - but certainly we can all agree that beautiful design is a remarkable thing to behold - and always worth a second look!
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S H O W C A S I N G T H E W O R L D ' S T O P D E S I G N E R S - A T T H E T O P OF T H E I R G A M E
Image courtesy of Sotto Studios
It’s not a refusal – perish the thought – but it is a price tag that functions as one. Call it the “I’d rather not” tax, invoiced at two million dollars and suddenly the inconvenience of incorporating something non-standard simply… goes away.
Thomas Chatfield - Executive Contributor &
CEO - Camber Aviation Management
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here was a point in your life when owning a private jet was the single coolest thing you could imagine. You might have drawn it with crayons and given it flames down the side, probably, or lightning bolts, or your name in letters big enough to read from the ground. You weren’t thinking about colour palettes. You were thinking about how unbelievably, impossibly brilliant it would be to have your own jet.
- T h o m a s C h a t f i e l d
This is the 13th installment of Airborne Cafe. We are proud to embark on this ongoing series of thoughts, extollings, and stories from one of the premier figures in our industry. In each issue, Thomas Chatfield will offer us thought-provoking articles like the one above - each of them relevant and insightful from the perspective of private aviation. Simply hit the link at right to finish the article, and while you're there, learn more about Camber Aviation Management and the importance of their work
ASTRONICS (Avenir): The 4K Purist
If you’ve spent any time in the VIP completions world, you know the Astronics name. Through its Astronics PGA subsidiary, the company has long been a go-to for the upper tier of the market, and its Avenir platform represents perhaps the most technically ambitious integrated IFE/CMS architecture currently available for large-cabin and VVIP aircraft.
The Avenir system’s calling card is native 4K video distribution — not upscaled, not interpolated, but actual 4K content delivered over a fiber optic cabling backbone with Power Over Ethernet (PoE). That single-network architecture is a genuinely big deal. Traditional cabin systems required separate cable runs for power, video, and control. Avenir collapses all of that into one network, which reduces wire count, reduces weight, and makes installations and upgrades significantly less painful. Anyone who has ever lived through a cabin wire-bundle nightmare will appreciate this more than words can express.
On the display side, Astronics collaborated with LG to bring OLED technology into the certified aircraft environment, and the results speak for themselves. OLED panels deliver infinite contrast ratios, true blacks, and color accuracy that LCD simply cannot match at any price. The Avenir lineup includes both LCD and OLED options across a range of screen sizes, with the largest certified monitor in the history of aircraft interiors coming in at a breathtaking 77 inches. Put that in a wide-body VIP cabin and you’re not watching a movie — you’re attending a private screening.
The system supports Audio/Video On Demand (AVOD) with full Digital Rights Management, intra-system content streaming, HDMI and USB connectivity throughout, and a fully customizable graphical user interface. For operators who want the most polished, cinema-grade visual environment money can buy, Avenir is the conversation starter.
The Architecture of Ambition:
Masters of Megayacht Design
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When the world's most discerning owners commission a vessel, they reach for the same short list of studios. Here's why these names define the pinnacle of the art.
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There is a moment in the life of a megayacht that has nothing to do with sea trials or delivery ceremonies. It is the moment an owner steps aboard and feels, instinctively, that the vessel is theirs — an extension of their sensibility, their history, the private language of how they live. Manufacturing that feeling, reliably and at extraordinary scale, is the defining challenge of superyacht design. It is why a small constellation of studios and shipyards commands the most significant commissions afloat, and why owners return to them, project after project, decade after decade.
MAYA combines Collins Aerospace and Panasonic Avionics’ respective expertise in design, technology development and integration into a singular integrated solution, providing a clear differentiator for the business class cabin by redefining comfort, passenger immersion, accessibility and sustainability for the future air travel experience.
MAYA by Collins Aerospace
L U T T E N B U R G E R D E S I G N
The ARCHITECTURE of AMBITION:
Masters of Megayacht Design
S T U D I O I N D I G O
M A S T E R S O F S U P E R Y A C H T D E S I G N
Benetti, the storied Italian shipyard, is in many respects the institution that made the modern megayacht possible. Founded in Viareggio in 1873, Benetti launched the concept of the motopanfilo and helped invent what we now recognize as the modern megayacht. The Azimut|Benetti Group operates the world's largest active shipyard in Livorno, covering 240,000 square metres, with offices across Fort Lauderdale, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore, and London. Benetti's design language — warm, assured, rooted in the Italian tradition of bella figura — remains the standard against which Italian luxury at sea is judged. The yard's pioneering Oasis Deck concept, a lowered rear section whose wings fold down to create an extended beach club zone, eroded the traditional strict division between interior and exterior and influenced the entire industry's approach to how water, hull, and living space intersect.
Owner / Operators and Flight Departments, Welcome Aboard.
O C E A N C O
Five years ago when we launched Freshbook Magazine, it had one purpose: to pull together the entire global community of interior related companies - Cabin Suppliers, Completion Centers and Design Studios. In fact we're only one of two magazines in the world that focuses entirely on jet cabin interiors - and we're the sole such all digital publication.
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But today, we're extremely proud to announce a NEW permanent segment to our magazine. Up until little more than a year ago, 100% of our subscribers and social media followers were 'companies' in one of the three categories above. Today, however, Owner / Operators & Flight Departments account for almost 9% of our subscriber base - and it's growing. It's been a very organic trend and without solicitation. Yet, as you might imagine, we're very happy about this new top-tier subset of Freshbook subscribers, a group whose newfound attention adds obvious value to the advertisers and readers we serve!
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Check out our exclusive, entirely dedicated page for this new very special audience!
Owner / Operators, Welcome Aboard.
OCEANCO operates at a different register — not as a design studio per se, but as the Dutch shipyard against which all others are measured when a client demands the genuinely extraordinary. Based in Alblasserdam in the Netherlands, Oceanco builds luxury yachts from 80 to 140 metres in steel and aluminium, approaching each build with an open mind and frequently pushing the boundaries of what onboard technology can achieve. The yard's collaborative model — inviting world-class exterior stylists and interior designers into each project — has produced some of the most recognizable profiles afloat, from the sailing yacht Black Pearl to the colossal KAOS. Oceanco has worked with designers including Terence Disdale, Nuvolari-Lenard, Espen Øino, and Andrew Winch — partnerships that ensure its hulls carry not just engineering excellence but genuine aesthetic authority. The yard's recent NXT programme further signals its commitment to bringing progressive design thinking, including sustainability-forward propulsion systems, into vessels of the highest ambition.
Reymond-Langton Design
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Established in 2001 by the talented design duo of Pascale Reymond and Andrew Langton, both of whom already had over a decade’s experience in the superyacht industry, we are committed to creating designs that are as beautiful as they are functional whilst, at the same time, ensuring our clients’ expectations are not only met but exceeded, with projects being delivered on time and on budget. I
n 2002, Jason Macaree joined the team as a director. Coming from different creative backgrounds – Pascale gained a Master’s degree in Art History from La Sorbonne, Paris before moving to London to study Interior Design while Andrew and Jason graduated with a BA (Hons) in Transport Design – the team’s individual blend of skills and professional expertise are complementary, resulting in a remarkable and much sought after design team delivering unquestionable quality with superb attention to detail
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ince its founding in Berlin in 2017, RedCabin has become one of the most talked-about names in the aircraft interiors event space — not because it’s the biggest, but because it might be the sharpest. Built around a “collaborate to innovate” philosophy and a deliberately curated guest list, its Business Jet & VIP Interior Innovation Summit draws the people who are actually designing, engineering, and completing the world’s most extraordinary private aircraft interiors. We sat down with RedCabin’s Andreas Wibowo to find out how it all started, where it’s going, and why intimate summits like this one are increasingly where the real industry conversations are happening.
Article layout by
C Y R I L B A H T A R I S.P.J.
JCF Magazine Special Contributor
Rosen Aviation (Celestia + Sky Cinema): The Operator’s Champion
Rosen Aviation has been quietly — and not so quietly — rewriting the rulebook on what cabin technology should look and feel like. The California-based company has a well-earned reputation for pushing display size and image quality further than anyone thought practical, and their record-setting installation of a 97-inch 4K OLED display for a VVIP widebody completion in early 2026 is exactly the kind of headline that makes the rest of the industry sit up straighter.
But the bigger story from Rosen in 2025 wasn’t the screen size. It was Celestia — introduced in April of that year and carrying the distinction of being the world’s first operator-designed Cabin Management System. That phrase deserves a moment’s unpacking. Virtually every CMS on the market was designed by engineers and then adapted for operators. Celestia inverted the model, putting operator priorities — reliability, redundancy, ease of customization — at the center of the architecture from day one.
The result is a distributed network system with a secondary Ethernet backbone, meaning if one node has a bad day, the rest of the system keeps working. That might sound like engineering table stakes, but anyone who has experienced a mid-flight CMS failure knows it’s anything but. Celestia also brings predictive diagnostics into the picture, monitoring component health in real time and flagging potential issues before they become actual ones. By the time Celestia launched commercially, it had already logged over 17,000 hours of operational history across multiple aircraft platforms. Not a prototype. Not a promise. A proven system.
The user interface is completely customizable — operators can build their own UI graphics and integrate with both iOS and Android PED apps — and the modular architecture means any component can be upgraded, added, or reconfigured without affecting the rest of the system. For fleet operators especially, that kind of flexibility is worth considerably more than a bigger screen.
Speaking of screens and audio, Rosen’s Sky Cinema suite pairs 4K visuals with Dolby Atmos, 5.1, or 7.1 surround sound configurations, and the company’s patent-pending Immersa AudioSphere system turns individual seats into personal surround sound bubbles — immersive audio delivered spatially from within the seat structure itself. Noise-cancelling headphones are great; feeling like the sound is coming from all around you while cruising at 45,000 feet is something else entirely.
Unlike large trade shows that attract thousands of attendees, we intentionally keep the summit exclusive, limiting attendance to approximately 250–300 delegates. This creates an environment where participants can enjoy meaningful face-to-face interactions with both existing and prospective clients.
Luttenberger Designs operates with a precision and discretion that suits the most private tier of ownership. The studio's approach is resolutely bespoke: each project begins not with a signature aesthetic but with an interrogation of how a specific owner moves through the world. Luttenberger was selected alongside Winch and Tillberg to create interior design concepts for the 222-metre Somnio, placing the studio in rare company on a project where only the most trusted names were invited. That selection speaks to a reputation built quietly but solidly over years of work for clients who rarely seek publicity.
S T U D I O I N D I G O
Studio Indigo occupies a position that is simultaneously rare and quietly influential. Founded in London in 2005 by Mike Fisher — himself a superyacht owner, which is no small thing — the studio approaches each project as an act of habitation first, spectacle second. Studio Indigo's philosophy holds that clients' wishes come first, not the designers' ambitions, and that every project should feel like a unique journey. That ethos has produced a portfolio of uncommon range: from the 70-metre Joy, winner of the World Superyacht Awards in 2017, to the 90-metre Icebreaker, whose interiors evoke a floating loft capable of reaching the most remote corners of the earth. Motor Yacht M, a 47-metre Sanlorenzo explorer designed around adventurous owners, won a World Superyacht Award in 2025 — further evidence that Studio Indigo's gift for bespoke spatial storytelling translates effortlessly across scale.
The May 2026 Installment of Jetzign is Proud to Feature
JETZIGN is a ongoing feature in each issue of JCF Magazine,
as well as a permanent section. The purpose of Jetzign is to display the talents, techinical skills and completion oversight expertise of the world's most recognized designers (both the independents and those who preside over the design departments within major centers). Within each Jetzign feature article, we focus on the work of a specific designer and illustrate the body of their work via video animation, still images and narratives from the designer.
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T H O M A S D E L U S S A C
Design De Lussac - Paris
Massive 4K OLED Displays: Features the industry's largest aircraft-grade, curved OLED screens—ranging in size up to an astonishing 97 inches. Despite their massive size, they are built with lightweight composite materials designed to meet strict aircraft weight limits.
- Rosen Aviation
The Jet Business is the world's first and only street-level aviation showroom for the marketing and acquisition of corporate jet aircraft. Headed by Steve Varsano and based in London, The Jet Business represents its clients throughout the aircraft acquisition process, offering the most up-to-date product information, global market data, extensive industry relationships
and universal world-class expertise.
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Explore the options of jet ownership. Learn more.
The Continental GT, Flying Spur and Bentayga are the very definition of a modern Bentley line-up, all built with the words of the founder, W.O Bentley ringing in the air: “I want to build a fast car, a good car, the best car in its class.”
M A Y F E A T U R E D D E S I G N S T U D I O
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