Norduyn galley drawers (WaveMax composite drawers)

Norduyn's WaveMax composite galley drawers are full-size and half-size ATLAS-standard drawer inserts manufactured from reinforced thermoplastic composites. Designed to slot directly into any ATLAS-compatible trolley — including third-party aluminium carts — they are a retrofit-friendly solution for operators seeking to reduce per-trolley weight without replacing the entire cart fleet. The composite construction delivers two operational advantages over the aluminium drawers that remain the industry default. First, composite is RFID-transparent: modern catering operations increasingly use RFID-tagged inserts scanned at the galley gate or cart-return station, and aluminium drawers block scanner reads, requiring manual handling or external tag placement. Second, composite drawers are lighter per unit — a meaningful aggregate saving when an airline operates thousands of insert cycles daily across a large fleet. Norduyn's composite panels use polypropylene reinforced with fibreglass, a material combination that provides impact and abuse resistance appropriate for high-cycle ramp and galley environments while meeting applicable FST requirements for cabin-installed equipment. The drawer body is moulded rather than riveted, eliminating the fastener points that are common fatigue and corrosion initiation sites on aluminium inserts. For procurement teams evaluating drawers, the decision is usually driven by fleet compatibility (ATLAS vs KSSU), insert capacity (number of meal tray positions per drawer), and replacement cost per cycle. Composite drawers typically carry a higher unit price than commodity aluminium equivalents but offer a longer service life and lower lifecycle maintenance cost. GCC carriers operating out of hot-climate ramps where aluminium surfaces are prone to thermal expansion and surface oxidation may find the composite option particularly relevant.