Safran has announced plans to divest its Safran Cabin unit, which provides overhead bins, galleys, lavatories, water and waste management solutions, and other aircraft cabin interiors to the civil aviation market.
Against a backdrop that saw Safran Cabin achieve “notable growth” in the third quarter in the Middle East, Europe and the Americas, “we launched the process to divest our Cabin business a few weeks ago,” Safran Group CEO Pascal Bantegnie revealed during the firm’s Q3 earnings conference call.
“For your reference, Cabin now generates around EUR 2 billion in revenue per year and is delivering positive EBIT and free cash flow,” he said.
The decision is not surprising. Since acquiring Zodiac Aerospace in 2018, the French aerospace giant has been studying – and indeed executing on – the divestiture of non-core interiors activities.
Eight months ago, Safran sold its inflight entertainment business, Safran Passenger Innovations, to Los Angeles-based private equity firm Kingswood Capital Management. The business was renamed RAVE Aerospace. In July, Safran sold its shares of EZAir, its interiors joint venture with Embraer, to the Brazilian airframer.
Aircraft seats remain core to Safran’s business, however, with Bantegnie pointing to Q3 growth in both services and business class original equipment, “boosted by higher volumes and improved pricing.”
“The market for seats,” he said, “still exceeds available supply, which puts us in a strong position to negotiate favorable terms.”
Across the wider interiors business, Safran achieved Q3 organic revenue growth of nearly 6%. An industry-wide seat supply crunch due to integrated IFE/seat certification challenges continues to bite, however.
Though the problem is certainly not unique to Safran, it is affecting the firm. Some seat deliveries, “especially innovative business class seats,” could shift from late 2026 to early 2027, Bantegnie said.
Seeing solid Q3 revenue growth across its divisions, including propulsion, and equipment & defense, Safran has reaffirmed its outlook for 2026, and expects revenue growth to be “up mid-teens.” Watch items include the Middle East conflict and supply chain production capabilities, as airframers boost aircraft production rates.
“As we look ahead, while navigating in an uncertain environment, we are confident in Safran’s ability to deliver on its commitments for 2026 and accelerate production across both civil and defense,” said CEO Olivier Andriès.
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Featured image credited to John Walton
