Submissions for the two Crystal Cabin Award 2021 special categories has begun, with the winners revealed at the Aircraft Interiors Expo 2021.

The two categories, “Clean & Safe Air Travel” and “Judges’ Choice Award”, is open to manufacturers, suppliers, researchers, students, design agencies and airlines.

The winners in the two special categories will be announced in parallel with the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg next year.

 The “Clean & Safe Air Travel” award is open to all on-board innovations focusing on hygiene and safety standards for passengers and crew. Entries must be implementable within two years, and the concepts should not be more than one year old. Concepts and products that have already been entered in a different CCA category in the past are excluded.

The “Judges’ Choice Award” is aimed at innovations for the cabin not explicitly focused on health and safety, which could normally have been submitted in one of the eight main categories: Cabin Concepts, Cabin Systems, In-Flight Entertainment and Connectivity, Passenger Comfort Hardware, Material & Components, Greener Cabin, University, Visionary Concepts. Here, too, it must be possible to implement the innovations within two years. Up to three innovations may be submitted.

These two categories are part of the independent Crystal Cabin Award Association’s response to the impact of the global Covid-19 pandemic on the civil aviation industry.

An international task force with representatives of the almost 30 experts on the award judging panel, selected from every sector in the aviation industry and every continent, developed the categories.

For the first time in its history, the Crystal Cabin Award is levying an entry fee of 290 euros per submission for this entry phase in response to the “massive” increase in project management expenditure, for example in the premium exposure given to candidates within specialist audience and media.

The voluntary industry prize, launched by the Hamburg Aviation industry cluster, will continue to be funded by sponsorship.

In addition to the two special categories, the 24 finalists in the eight regular categories, selected at the start of the year, are still in the running. The current Crystal Cabin Award round was temporarily suspended in March this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. All winners of the Crystal Cabin Awards 2020 season will be crowned in the spring of 2021 after a personal final presentation to the international experts of the judging panel.

To enter, submission can be logged online before 12 January 2021 at: www.crystal-cabin-award.com