Next time you’re on a plane, take a look at your seat cushion. If you look closely, you’ll most likely find the words “Made in Kilkeel” sewn onto the saddle somewhere.
Kilkeel is a small town in Northern Ireland, and while you’ve probably never heard of it before, it’s home to one of the world’s oldest and largest commercial airplane seat factories. .
The facility opened in 1967 as Aircraft Furnishing Ltd with just five employees. Fast-forwarding 56 years, Alan Henning, chief executive officer of the Kilkeel plant, has more than 800 employees working for him, most of whom live in Kilkeel and surrounding communities.
Owned and operated by American Collins Aerospace Corporation (a subsidiary of Raytheon Technologies), the Kilkeel facility is the main outpost for the company’s furniture business. It basically builds everything you’d find inside a jet, from life rafts and toilets to seats and tray tables.
(The whole of Northern Ireland really plays an important role in the aviation industry, as it is also home to the factories of Airbus, Boeing, Embraer, Spirit AeroSystems, Thales and several other major carriers.)
While Collins’ furniture business operates factories worldwide, Kilkeel specializes in airplane seats. The factory there has the largest seat manufacturing facility in the world and has produced more than 25% of the aircraft seats in operation.
In a word, more than 2.5 million flying seats globally have been built at Collins’s Kilkeel facility.
As the mecca of airplane seats, I was keen to visit Kilkeel to find out how they were actually made. That opportunity came earlier this week, just days before Collins’ latest product, Elements . business class suitewill take the first of it commercial flight with Starlux.
I’ll have more to share about the importance of the Elements product in a separate post, but let’s dive into how to make an airplane seat—a three-step process that’s much more complicated than you might think. imagine.
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Sourcing parts
All airplane seats start out as a collection of parts. At Collins, these parts are sourced and stored at a brand new 70,000-square-foot logistics center that opened at the start of the pandemic after a multi-year construction project.
Less than a mile from the assembly plant, this new hub is where parts are distributed, collected, sorted, and then sent to the rest of the operation.
Henning told TPG that the opening of the logistics center has brought huge efficiencies to the manufacturing process, as Collins now sources all parts two days before assembly. This gives the manufacturer 48 hours of time to identify any problems or missing parts without having to stop the assembly line in action.
From tray tables to seat belts, parts come in all shapes and sizes. To account for that, Collins has divided the logistics center into two zones, one dedicated to the premium economy and economy parts and another to the business and luxury parts. firstclass. Furthermore, to account for all this variation, there are six different storage bin sizes to hold parts.
In each area, you’ll find department aisles and aisles, almost as if you were shopping at Costco or BJ’s—just exchange toilet paper and tissues for seat cushions and screws.
Every day, “shoppers” go down each aisle and fill their trolley (or “stroller”, as the Irishman Henning calls it) with the supplies needed to make each chair.
Once the carts are filled, they are transported to the assembly line — a short, five-minute journey that occurs at least twice an hour.
Building components
Collins sources many parts from outside suppliers. However, some components cannot be purchased. Instead, they have to do them by hand (or machine), which is where the so-called “aggregation site” comes in.
Here, the company fabricates the composites, covers, and plastic that go into each seat.
I can’t access every machine in this facility (some parts of the process are owned by Collins and the company keeps them top secret). However, I have witnessed a three-axis CNC (computer numerically controlled) trimmer that cuts and molds plastic into specific parts, such as a composite cover that fits into a chair.
These robots are much cooler than they look. After programming the module on the computer, the robot will automatically cut the plastic as specified in the program without any errors.
After a short period of compressed air injection and testing, the parts are ready to be delivered to the assembly site. There, they will assemble parts selected from the logistics center to turn into seats.
Seat assembly
This is where the magic happens – building seats. In the moment I entered this 215,000 square foot space, I saw seats reserved for Copa, Delta, EgyptAir and JetBlue planes.
Collins organizes seat assembly into 11 production lines, 7 lines for premium economy and economy seats, and 4 lines for business and first class.
Building premium economy and economy seats is much simpler than assembling premium cabins. Collins has achieved such a level of science that it only takes 9 to 11 minutes of work to build a three-seat area for the economy class.
In the afternoon of my visit, I observed EgyptAir’s economy class seat production line. I was on a team of about 20 operators, each responsible for a separate part of the assembly line.
Each operator stands in front of a computer screen that essentially displays instructions for using to build the seat. The sourcing team is responsible for ensuring each station is stocked with the necessary parts to complete each step.
The first operator put the base of the seat back together, then he slid the base down to the next throttle.
Seats are assembled on pedestals attached to roller coaster rails that rotate counterclockwise. This way, the operator doesn’t need to lift anything too heavy—they just need to push the seat between stations.
As the seats move around the assembly line, they start to resemble something you’d actually find on an airplane.
Perhaps the most interesting step is installing the tray tables. Workers will first screw into the edges of the chair, then install the table themselves.
However, this process is not complete without detailed calibration. Since the evaporator is tilted upwards, all tray tables must be calibrated to rest three degrees upwards.
It might look funny on the ground, but it all makes sense when you’re in the air — without this procedure, the tray table would tilt down in flight.
EgyptAir has opted not to install a seat back entertainment system or power outlet in economy class. If that’s the case, each display and charging system will undergo a rigorous quality control test that includes looping video playback to identify dead pixels and testing the power and USB ports.
About 11 minutes later, the assembly is complete and moves on to the next batch.
Kilkeel is not an easy drive to any Airbus or Boeing final assembly lines. Each seat must be transported to the aircraft’s site of manufacture, whether it is Hamburg, Germany; Toulouse, France; Seattle; Charleston, South Carolina; or Tianjin, China.
Like Amazon, the shipping process works on the assembly line. Chairs are placed on pallets, wrapped in protective plastic and bubble wrap, boxed and sealed with strong lanyards. Shipping labels are affixed to each box and the boxes are loaded onto trucks for transport to the aircraft manufacturer.
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ZACH GRIFF/THE POINT
While the assembly of economy class seats is relatively simple, things become much more complicated with products with premium compartments.
Collins builds the most popular business class seats here. This includes the products Qsuite, Elevation, and AirLounge, aka the product of the same name Qatar Qsuite, British Airways Club Room and new Finnair non-reclining casecorresponding.
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ZACH GRIFF/THE POINT
The basics of the premium cabin assembly process are the same as those of the economy class assembly line, but everything takes longer. Since aspects such as door installation and cable yards require wiring, more effort is required to build a business class seat.
(Collins also charge more for these seats, but the listed prices are a well-kept secret. I’ve heard that each British Airways Club Suite costs the same as a fancy sports car.)
While production times vary, building a single enterprise-grade team can take anywhere from 90 minutes to three hours.
During my visit, I saw the Collins team assemble a British Airways Club Room for a future Boeing 777-300ER. What started as a metal shell gradually turned into the product we know and love. My visit ended before this particular Club Suite was completed, but I was particularly impressed by how intricate these chairs were.
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ZACH GRIFF/THE POINT
I didn’t see first-class suites on my tour, but that doesn’t mean Collins didn’t build them.
Several first-rate products are manufactured in other facilities, including Emirates “game changer” manufactured at Collins’ factory in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Others were built in Kilkeel, but Collins hid the assembly line behind a curtain because they were often assembled before an airline announced it.
Although I wanted to look inside this curtained area, I noticed the “authorized personnel only” signs.
bottom line
For nearly 60 years, Collins has put Kilkeel, Northern Ireland on the map.
This small seaside town is home to one of the largest airplane seat manufacturing facilities in the world. It has a long history of building some of the most popular products for British Airways, Singapore Airlines, Japan Airlines and even Delta’s BusinessElite Offer.
Today, Collins counts most of the major airlines as customers, and although you may never know it, a quarter of the world’s airplane seats are built here.
That said, after visiting three unremarkable buildings located 90 minutes from the nearest major city, I have a new appreciation for all the work involved in manufacturing economy seats. and business class cabins. The process has been perfected over the years, so even the world’s most beautiful and high-end products can be assembled in just a few hours.
