After largely insulating itself from the brunt of aviation’s supply chain crunch with a new production facility in the Italian town of Lioni, aircraft interior modification specialist ABC International is now offering a “full package” approach to airlines, and confides it is seeing particularly strong growth opportunities in Central Asia and South America.

Focused on manufacturing products that are in line with the scope of its approval as a design organiation — including aircraft partitions and small monuments, plus soft furnishings such as carpets, curtains and seat covers — ABC is benefitting from “being a little bit detached from the supply chain when it comes to the manufacturing because we can manage the production by ourselves,” which in turn provides heightened flexibility, Olindo Spatola, the company’s VP engineering & HDO, told RGN during the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg.

CNC machines and an assembly line on the premises in Lioni enable ABC to manufacture the honeycomb parts needed for small monuments and partitions. “So, that’s basically what makes the difference. In this way we can provide the design, the Service Bulletin, and the finished path to the manufacturing,” Spatola said.

As a result, delivery times are reduced because ABC can now produce everything it traditionally designed, and it can offer Part 21J engineering solutions to modify aircraft cabins.

This “full package” of proficiencies is especially important given that protracted premium seat certification delays and other choke points in industry have created a paradigm where airlines seek very fast delivery turnarounds when updating existing aircraft in a bid to either match new tails or to serve as a stopgap until new aircraft are delivered.

Located about 100 km from Naples International Airport, ABC’s new production plant complies with EASA Part 21G, the requirements for obtaining Production Organisation Approval. Formal POA could arrive as early as this month, “more or less in the summertime,” Spatola said. “We do not expect any major delay on this.”

ABC is also staying busy with its cabin branding business, including for low-cost carriers which are are increasingly focused on brand identity. And it continues to embrace refurbishment projects that involve new system installations, such as the recent integration of WeSky’s in-seat power system to an Airbus A330.

The firm has observed particularly strong growth opportunities in Central Asia and South America.

Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, is one of those cities that “in ten years time, you will see completely changed. It’s growing very fast, not only Tashkent but I think the region in general, and in fact we are considering, and it’s in our plans to invest always more in that,” said ABC sales executive Camilla Sabatino.

“We already have contacts and customers in the region, but we want to expand… and also South America is another region that has grown very fast.”

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Featured image credited to John Walton