I joined Acro around six months ago and in that time, I thought I’d learnt a lot about the aerospace and aircraft interiors industry, but nothing quite prepared me for my first AIX.
The majority of my career has been in logistics and so joining Acro has been a baptism of fire – diving into a new industry is as exciting as it is daunting, but my colleagues at Acro have been great in explaining how it all works. So, I was excited to go along to AIX and support the sales and programmes team for the three days of the show.
“It’s the biggest aircraft interior show in the world”, I was told. “Prepare yourself to be shattered and for your feet to ache”, they added.
Preparations and packing for the show were continuing at pace at our base in Crick, Northamptonshire, as I prepped to leave my family for a week and pack my case with everything from high vis jackets and steel toe capped boots to a smart suit and formal, but comfortable, shoes.
Most of the support crew from Acro arrive on the Sunday to help prepare the stand, before the show opens to the visitors on the Tuesday. Other members of the Acro team had already been there a few days, getting the seats fitted, supporting the stand builders and making sure that our seats were in tip-top condition by the time we arrived on the Monday.
Walking into the conference, we were greeted with hundreds of stand builders working furiously across six exhibition halls. As a health and safety manager, it was an attack on the senses (and a lot of common sense, too) that I wasn’t prepared for. But they all worked in unison, with our stand builders helping others with materials and filler, while one company across the way needed some gaffer tape – we were all in it together.
Acro’s stand was mostly built and so we began vacuuming, prepping marketing materials, getting televisions on walls, installing software, organising furniture, installing coffee machines – anything and everything you can think of to add the finishing touches to the amazing work already done on the stand. You see, when you work on an exhibition stand like this, you have to muck in. You have to pull together as a team to get the stand ready for those doors to open at 9 am the following morning – whether it’s brushing off your barista skills, or getting on your hands and knees around aircraft seats to clean up any leftover bits of wire from the electrical instal.
Meanwhile, our engineers and technicians are spending their time taking the seats through their paces, checking they have travelled well and that all the mechanisms are working as they should be, ready to demonstrate them to potential airline or leasing customers.
Fair play to the team, we worked like a well-oiled machine and in record time (so I’m told by my colleagues). We were all finished, and the stand was ready for our visitors by 4.30 pm on the Monday afternoon. It was a frantic and tiring but satisfying day where we saw all our colleagues and contractors pull together and get the stand across the line.
We celebrated with a visit to the Hofbrau – a traditional (if a bit touristy) cafeteria type restaurant where I got to sample my first curry wurst – which is basically German sausage, curry sauce and chips – which was delicious and was not the last time I ate it in my short stay in Hamburg.
Tuesday was the first day of the show, and I was amazed by the changes to the exhibition halls. When we left on the Monday night, there were still people hammering, sawing and constructing stands from bits of MDF. By the time Tuesday had come around it was transformed into a serene place of business, where aircraft interior businesses from all around the world had gathered to show off their wares. There were seatbelt manufacturers, window designers, lifeboat providers – you name it, it was there. Anything that is on the inside of an aeroplane was for sale, from cutlery to headphones to, of course, top-class seats.
Acro’s stand runs on an appointment-only basis, which allows our sales and programmes team to demonstrate our seats properly to those interested in buying them or in how they would work in their aircraft or airline. During the three days on the stand, we met with hundreds of people, from airlines, leasing companies, current customers, potential customers, representatives of Airbus and Boeing, as well as suppliers and manufacturers, all keen to chat to our sales, design or programmes team.
It was a total eye opener for me to the reality, scale and true international nature of the aircraft interiors industry. I met someone from every continent of the world during those three days – and what a pleasure it was to learn more about what goes into building not only aircraft seats, but also many other aeroplane components.
Key things I took away from my first AIX were:
- You do indeed need comfortable shoes
- A smile can say a hundred words
- I have never been so tired (apart from when we had our three children as newborns)
- Everyone knows each other in the aircraft interiors industry
- AIX is vast, and I mean massive
- It helps to learn hello and goodbye in German, French, Mandarin and any other language you can learn in a short space of time
- Good communication with your colleagues is key when working at events
- A measuring tape is a must-have accessory at AIX
- You don’t see much of Hamburg
It was a great five days spent learning more about Acro’s seats, the aircraft interiors industry and of course, my colleagues. We worked very hard, my feet are still recovering, but we had a lot of fun at the same time.
Here’s to AIX 2026!
