Cabin Refurbishment – Investing to expand | Inflight magazine September/October issue.

Inflight editor Satu Dahl spoke with Coralie Wigg at Starling Aerospace, to learn more about the company’s aircraft interiors projects.

UK-based Starling Aerospace has seen significant growth in demand for bespoke aircraft interior refurbishment projects. The company has extended its design and manufacturing capability thanks to a six-figure investment. Starling’s Co-Founding Director, Coralie Wigg, tells Inflight: “This major investment in machinery represents the biggest upgrade in Starling’s capability since the company was established more than two decades ago.

“By combining different sewing tasks into a single CNC machine, we can create any design for leather and fabric, no matter how complex. Equally, our in-house autoclave provides an agile solution for customers needing a fast project turnaround.

“Starling is seeing a growing trend for completely bespoke interiors, so we are well positioned to deliver increasingly exotic designs that our clients are demanding.”

The company, which carries out all its aircraft interior refurbishments engineering and certifications in-house at its facility in Leatherhead, Surrey, has further invested in a laminating machine for seamless bonding of leather to foam for aircraft seat refurbishment, together with an additional CNC machine to precisely cut aviation-grade metal billets to make high-quality components.

Recently, Starling designed, manufactured and certified a bespoke modular triple wardrobe stowage solution and an XXL changing room lavatory on a VVIP Airbus A321.

“This project was an engineering feat,” says Wigg, “as they certified the lavatory in a location on the aircraft where the OEM had never done so before.”

Some of Starling’s other recent projects include an entire cabin interior fit-out on a Cessna Citation CJ1, which was accomplished entirely in-house, as well as an ongoing VIP Airbus A330 project, performing aqua transfer printing on all the monuments within the aircraft.

The company says the challenge was to handle the large monuments, which it successfully overcame.

Interior features such as leather seat covers, aqua transfer system, carpets, veneer repairs and build-to-print services all see high demand in cabin refurbishment projects, Wigg confirms.

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