An Ambitious Retrofit Program to Help Emirates “Fly Better”
It’s one of the largest cabin retrofits in aviation history.
Two years ago, Emirates contracted Collins Aerospace to refurbish super first-class suites and cabin attendant seats on its Airbus A380s and Boeing 777 fleet, with the activity being completed at Collins’ MRO facility in Dubai, UAE. The project was part of the customer’s multi-billion-dollar retrofit program to enhance the customers in flight experience across the entire cabin, incorporating new interior designs and products.
One of the largest international airlines in the world, Emirates calls the upgrade program its “fly better” initiative.
“It’s a huge investment for Emirates, to maintain and enhance its position as one of the world’s leading airlines and we’re privileged to be a strategic partner,” said Mukesh Bhanderi, a Senior Account Manager at Collins.
Ramping up to meet demand
As Collins and Emirates began discussing the scope of the cabin retrofit work, Collins determined that the MRO facility in Dubai would have to be optimized to handle such a project. But the team in Dubai knew it could meet the high demands of the customer by leaning on the strengths of Collins’ aftermarket capabilities and the breadth of expertise across its Interiors business unit.
The cabin upgrades will ultimately occur on 67 A380s and 53 777s.
What makes the project so ambitious is the short turnaround time: Emirates has requested Collins to turn around an aircraft’s shipset of first-class suites and cabin attendant seats in less than two weeks. That includes 14 suites aboard each A380 and eight suites on each 777. With each shipset requiring thousands of man hours of work, the pace required to turn a single aircraft is notable.
“The scale of this project is unprecedented for the MRO, with the challenging schedule and the number of first-class suites and cabin attendant seats being sent for refurbishment, said Ojas Sarvia - Senior Value Senior Manager at the Dubai MRO.
The nuances of a complex project
Retrofitting any cabin seat is nuanced and time consuming, but the refurbishment of a seat like Emirates’ first-class suite is especially involved, given its complexity. Refurbishment activity involves all new leather plating, hydro printing, painting, powder coating, with Collins technicians touching more than 1,000 parts across a single shipset.
Aesthetics is hugely important for the passenger experience. Collins has incorporated a modern stitch pattern on the dress covers similar to what is used on luxury automotive seats. “The stitching must be perfect. The leather wrap has to be perfect. The finished product must be perfect. Like our customer, we and Collins expect nothing less,” said Sarvia.
Refreshed and revamped: before and after of the trim and finish inside an Emirates first class suite. The suite’s complex array of components were refurbished and reassembled, extending the life of the seat for years to come.
Operational efficiency a priority
The Collins team in Dubai was supported by the wider Interiors business unit, including designers and engineers who had created the suite, as well as experts in operations, supply chain, sales, and business development.
These contributions, Sarvia said, “helped us determine the most efficient way to do the work. How the product flows through the MRO. How we process the work in the most efficient way to achieve faster turnaround time and perfect quality.”
He added: “When we face challenges collectively, we identify the issues and quickly take the right course of action.”
The customer has noticed.
With the collaborative nature of our relationship with Emirates, they often come on site to our MRO facility, Sarvia said. “They come into the shop, see the layout, and come a week later and see a completely different layout. And they will say, ‘Why has the layout changed?’ And we say, ‘We found a better way to do the work, and we changed it.’”
Advancing sustainability
The Dubai MRO’s proximity to Emirates’ Engineering and hangars, about 37 miles away, streamlines the project, yielding obvious benefits. Emirates doesn’t have to ship components all over the world, and Collins has established a network of UAE based suppliers to support the program with greater efficiency.
Powder coating is one example. According to Bhanderi, the powder that is sourced for the Emirates project “is made from a factory within the UAE rather than getting it through suppliers across the globe, which is what we would have originally done.”
Beyond efficiency and cost, streamlining has advanced sustainability efforts, as Collins and Emirates are not burning jet fuel to send parts and components around the globe to complete the project. The retrofit program itself is a sustainable solution, where extending the life of the suites keeps materials from being added to a landfill.
A template for all
In many ways, the Emirates program is an acknowledgement of the increasing expectations of passengers, who want a premium experience in airline travel.
Collins believes it has exceeded those expectations on this program of work.
“This project underscores our capability to do retrofits across a whole range of programs, from basic dress cover changes to a more complex modifications, upgrades and support of customer turnaround times,” Bhanderi said. “It’s certainly a template for what we can do for customers all around the world, utilizing our Collins network.”
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