Intelligent Cabin Divider Demonstrator Unveiled At NBAA

LAS VEGAS—A business aircraft cabin divider with an integrated display that blends invisibly into the background surface material when not required has been unveiled at NBAA-BACE by joint developers Lufthansa Technik, Pilatus and interior specialist F/LIST.

Directed initially at potential application on the Pilatus PC-24, the divider design leverages technology developed by Lufthansa Technik for the network integrated cabin environment (NICE) Intelli Table and wall screen, prototypes of which were unveiled at the Dubai Airshow in 2025.

The divider demonstrator version integrates a 14.5-inch high-resolution OLED touchscreen directly into the dark wood veneer and gloss covered haptic material of the cabin unit. The screen is designed to become visible at the touch of a fingertip.

Lufthansa Technik provides electronics and software for the NICE system below the surface, while F/LIST has developed the surface and divider. “We are working closely with Pilatus to make sure that whatever we build here is going to be certified,” says Andrew Muirhead, vice president original equipment and special aircraft Services at Lufthansa Technik.

“I don’t want to give any secrets away because there’s quite a lot of intellectual property, but the hardest part is how do you make it maintainable in an aircraft environment?” Muirhead says. “It is one thing sticking a display into something like that. It is another thing thinking about how that’s going to work operationally and how you are going to maintain it,” he adds.

Another challenge has been thermal management and integrating the unit for easy removal, he notes. “So there’s visible magic, but the real magic is also behind the scenes. How do you get rid of the heat? How do you exchange it if it’s broken? You don’t want to be removing an entire wall from an aircraft—that would become a huge problem. And we figured out a way of doing that where it’s not a problem.”

As for thermal management technology, Muirhead declines to go into detail. “All I can tell you is we’ve solved it,” he says.

Lufthansa Technik plans to develop and qualify the divider with several units, including dividers that will undergo tests for electromagnetic interference and other certification challenges. “Most of the core things like flammability we’ve done. You have also got to take it through all the formal testing, loads, waterproofness and all the standard tests. That is work that we’ve done during pretesting, so we’re confident that it’s going to work,” he says.

Testing and processing for certification is expected to take “a couple of years,” he adds, with final timing dependent on when Pilatus opts to introduce the feature into its production program.