Lufthansa Technik is reorganising its interior equipment divisions to boost its cabin refurbishment and VIP completions business.
The German maintenance specialist is bundling all cabin product development and production activities in a new “original equipment innovation” division to more effectively manage design and manufacturing processes, know-how transfer between different products, and sales and aftermarket support, it says.
The new division will initially comprise about 80 staff members from different departments within LHT, but that number is set to grow in future. The team will be headed by Andrew Muirhead, who previously led the MRO provider’s “Innovation” unit, which focused on the design and development, but not the manufacturing, of cabin equipment.
LHT supplies a number of interior products as an OEM, partly in partnership with other manufacturers. This includes, for example, interior lighting, fluorescent emergency floor marking, wi-fi hardware, cabin management and IFE systems, as well as patient-transport units.
Meanwhile, the interior workshops at the MRO provider’s base in Hamburg have been organised as a single source for cabin modification services for customer airlines. Previously, the workshops have mainly served as support for aircraft base-maintenance activities.
Around 200 staff members are employed within these workshops. The division is led by Arne Bruhn and is working closely with the new “original equipment innovation” department, specialist VIP workshops and LHT’s engineering team, the group says.
While passenger expectations are rising and product development cycles are becoming shorter, Muirhead says that LHT has “the potential to turn ideas into reality faster than others [suppliers]” due to MRO group’s experience in flight operation, aircraft maintenance and VIP completions.
Source: Cirium Dashboard
