In-flight dining innovations: The sushi automat in the sky

LONDON — You have to love innovation, no matter how out-there the ideas may be. After all, without the Wright Brothers attempting to control flight (considered a ludicrous idea at the time), we wouldn’t be able to hop on the Airbus A380 or Boeing Dreamliner to get to our holiday destinations. So perhaps it’s apt that new innovations in flight technology and in-flight passenger comfort continue to surprise in that vein.

Take, for example, the new idea to have in-flight dining distributed to passengers a la a sushi conveyor belt. The automated system would distribute meals on a belt-type contraption hidden beneath the cabin floor along the aisles, Skift.com reported. The mechanism, designed by Sell GMBH, a German division of aeroplane equipment company Zodiac Aerospace, is still being developed, but passengers would essentially access their food on demand by pressing buttons on the in-flight entertainment system, causing the food distributor to rise out of the floor. This would allow airlines to dispense food and drinks to passengers without using trolleys operated by flight attendants.

In theory, the system would make more efficient use of cabin space, keeping the aisles clear during the flight and allowing crew to better attend to travellers and their needs. As yet, there is no indication as to when the system will be introduced on passenger flights.

The proposed system draws inspiration from a similar device created by Martin Limanoff in 1965, which consisted of a square-shaped robot box that was designed to travel up and down the aisle along a monorail track on the cabin floor. It is not clear if Limanoff’s design was ever used on commercial flights. But such carousel designs may pose a problem for window and middle-seat passengers, who may have more difficultly retrieving food than those in the aisle seat. There may also be problems if the aisle passenger happens to be asleep, as the distributing device, along with the food, could have moved on to the next row in the time taken for the other two passengers to reach over their resting neighbour.

The version patented by Sell GMBH may solve this issue by delivering food directly to each passenger, which would require more space for a dispensing system around every seat, potentially creating more leg room. It may then offer economy-class travellers more of a private dining experience, in place of the tray-table dining currently offered in standard cabins.

Sell GMBH’s in-flight food distributor is the latest in a series of automated food delivery systems — though not all on planes — that have been developed in recent years. Earlier this year, Singapore restaurant chain Timbre joined start-up company Infinium Robotics to create a system of “helicopter drone waiters”, officially known as unmanned aerial vehicles, to deliver food from the kitchen directly to customers’ tables on a flying tray device. The contraption was proposed in an attempt to increase productivity among staff, freeing them up to tend to more tables and diners. The drone waiters are expected to be installed from the last quarter of this year.

Last year, robotic bartenders were among the highlighted features of Royal Caribbean International’s Quantum cruise ships. But the robotic arms failed to stand glasses upright on a number of occasions, while cocktails, meant to be mixed in one minute, took up to 20 minutes to arrive, causing the IT team to pull the plug — literally — and go back to the drawing board.

In 2013, the Japanese restaurant chain YO! Sushi tested the iTray, the world’s first flying tray, to deliver diners’ orders. The high-tech flying platter was custom-built using lightweight carbon fibre, and two built-in HD cameras allowed kitchen staff to check that the chain’s new burger range was delivered correctly. THE DAILY TELEGRAPH