Interior completion has become a booming market as business jet sales are soaring
Kate Sarsfield/LONDON
It's boom time for the business aviation industry. Sales of new and secondhand aircraft are growing as more and more of these machines are snapped up to serve as business tools for company executives and as "luxury toys" for the rich. The knock-on effect is being felt at bustling interior completion centres across the globe, as they struggle to keep pace with demand for their technicians' increasingly rare skills. The interior completions market has long been dominated by a clutch of independents, including Hamburg, Germany-based Lufthansa Technik, Associated Air Centre of Dallas, Texas, and Jet Aviation of West Palm Beach, Florida, and Basle, Switzerland.
In recent years, however, original airframe manufacturers (OEMs) have woken up to the benefits of this lucrative niche and, except for Airbus and Boeing, perform the bulk of their interior completions within recently erected in-house centres. For example, Bombardier performs interior work from a site in Tucson, Arizona, and at its recently completed Dorval, Montreal, base. Raytheon has completion centres in Wichita, Kansas, and Waco, Texas. Gulfstream completes its interiors in Savannah, Georgia, Long Beach, California, and the former KC Aviation base in Dallas, which it acquired last year. Dassault Falcon Jet has a completion facility in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Jim Harrison, completions manager for Jet Aviation at West Palm Beach, says: "Everyone is so busy at the moment. Even the OEMs that have traditionally performed their own completions [like Dassault] are having to outsource components and, in some cases, entire interiors to companies like ours."
For most of the independent completion houses, the siphoning off of green aircraft by the OEMs has forced a shift in focus towards refurbishment. Jet Aviation's West Palm Beach site specialises in full refurbishment, re-upholstering and recarpeting from entry-level aircraft to large business jets, while its Basle facility and its competitor, Lufthansa Technik, specialise in large business aircraft and widebody airliner interiors. "This can include everything from ageing BAC One-Elevens and McDonnell Douglas DC-9s to Airbus A340s and Boeing 757s, 767s and 747s," says Hans Indlekofer, Lufthansa Technik's director for key account VIP. The German company will shortly begin interior work on a Boeing 777.
Corporate families
The popularity of the latest family of corporate airliners - the Boeing Business Jet (BBJ) and Airbus A319CJ - is also shoring up business. The company has five BBJs and two A319CJs under contract. Indlekofer adds: "We have two different production lines: one for the narrowbodies of BBJ size, which we complete at a rate of about six a year. The other is for widebodies. We complete around two of these a year, depending on the specification."
Jet Aviation Basle delivered its first completed BBJ in October, and is completing a further two aircraft. The company has Airbus contracts, one for an A319CJ and another for an A320. Rainer Albecker, vice-president and general manager for the BBJ and A319 CJ, says: "In the past, most of our large aircraft completions were 'one-off', performed on aftermarket aircraft usually converted from a standard airliner configuration to an executive interior. These new aircraft are being bought directly from the factory, specifically as executive transports."
Cabin design is not limited by imagination - only by the size of a customer's wallet. Indlekofer recalls one client spending around $150 million on a lavish interior for a Boeing 747.
This tends to be the exception, however. Most widebody executive conversions range in price from about $15-50 million and are usually for heads of state, royalty and very wealthy individuals. A typical configuration includes at least one dining area, master suite with bathroom, and often a Jacuzzi, guest suite with toilet, crew rest room, aft lounge and galley. Outfitting usually takes eight months to a year.
The average price tag of a large narrowbody interior - a BBJ, for example - is $7-10 million. A popular layout includes a forward lounge, master suite with bathroom, sitting room, aft lounge and galley. "A standard corporate interior [usually for company executives] will take around four months to complete and a VIP outfitting about six months," says Indlekofer.
Accommodating a customer's taste can be a challenging and painstaking process. Jet Aviation's Harrison believes the cabin should mirror a client's style. "A good interior must say everything about the personality of the customer in a momentary glance," he says. The secret of a successful customised interior is the illusion of space, even within the smallest cabin, and provision of a pleasing, comfortable environment conducive to conversation, eating and resting.
Customers are presented with a plethora of fabrics, including leathers and fine silks, wood and metal finishes and other materials with which to create their perfect surroundings. A range of cabin entertainment and "office in the sky" telecommunication systems are available, as are customised items such as china, cutlery and paintings.
Jet Aviation West Palm Beach refurbished a Boeing 727-100 with a trompe l'oeil painting, designed to create an illusion of space in the aft lounge. Another customer wanted the Amazon jungle replicated onboard, with the South American river running down the middle of the cabin.
Harrison says. "When customers come to us, we try to pull the ideas out of their heads and make them part of the design process. We can adapt most ideas, but, if a customer requests something we feel would have a negative affect on their cabin environment, such as brightly coloured surrounds, we would suggest alternatives." Earth tones, such as shades of brown, beige and green, "make people feel relaxed", says Harrison. Bright colours, such as orange, red and yellow, can cause agitation and discomfort to passengers, especially during long flights.
Bigger challenge
Interior completion is more challenging than it has ever been. Business aircraft can fly up to 14h non-stop and the demand for lightweight cabins that are aesthetic yet functional, accommodating everything from an elevator to a marble bath, is strong. The BBJ and A319CJ, for example, are restricted to an 11,000lb (5,000kg) interior weight allowance if they are not to sacrifice the advertised 11,650km (6,300nm) range.
Technological strides have been made with cabin furnishings. What appears to be a marble or granite-laden galley or bathroom, for example, is no more than a foam replica strengthened with lightweight nomex aluminium Kevlar. Similar lightweight and less costly alternatives are available in wood applications.
Both the US and European aviation authorities operate strict guidelines on the type of material that can be used for aircraft interiors. Each material must be safe, withstand fire and minimise generation of smoke and hazardous gases when exposed to fire. "Everything we put in the aircraft has to be analysed so that it complies with smoke, flammability and crash-resistance standards, which drives up the cost of the interior. A square foot of fire-retardant carpet, for example, starts at $100," says Harrison.
Once the contract's terms and the requirements have been agreed, the designer will draw up detailed plans of the interior, "which customers often hang on their wall". A popular alternative is the use of virtual reality, which provides a realistic computerised tour of the entire cabin. "Once the plans are drawn up, the real fun can start," Harrison adds.
The market has never been so good for completion houses and the upward trend looks set to continue. The only concern facing this industry is finding and retaining enough skilled technicians. Companies freely admit that fanciful and elaborate VIP interiors offer craftsmen and designers a greater challenge than the more popular standard corporate interior. Says Indlekofer: "We are always seeking ways to give our employees greater room for creativity and flexibility." He recalls a customer's request for a swimming pool to be fitted in a 747, which could be used in flight. He comments: "We told the customer that we could fit a pool into aircraft, but he could not use it while in transit. This wasn't acceptable, so he asked for stables to be built for his racehorses, which he could access from the main deck - which we did."
Source: Flight International
