The expected 2016 arrival of a big contract at Aircraft Interior Solutions for an innovative passenger seat was delayed by a longer than anticipated regulatory approval process.
But production of the new side-slip seat has regained momentum this year, and that means developing a bigger staff and finding a larger facility to house operations.
“This building is too small,” said Marshal “Jake” Jacobs, president of Aircraft Interior Solutions. “There are too many orders.”
For now, the company remains in its leased North Little Rock location, gearing up to meet a third-quarter goal of producing enough seat covers to equip four aircraft monthly. With a seat count ranging from 132-164 per plane, that’s about 600 seat covers.
“They want 10 aircraft a month,” Jacobs said. “I don’t know if we can ramp up that fast, but we’ll figure it out.”
With a four-hour turnaround time for each seat (bottom and back), that will mean a lot more workers, and more industrial sewing machines are on order, too.
The staff has grown to 22 and will expand to 30 by the end of March. The plan is to develop an expanded core of skilled employees to train more personnel to build a workforce of 80 by November and 120 by next March.
“If you bring in too many people too fast, it isn’t efficient to train them,” Jacobs said.
The company is laying the groundwork to move to larger quarters by the end of June.
A leading candidate for a new home is the former Carrier facility at 1805 Bond St., controlled by the Little Rock Municipal Airport Commission. The building offers triple the space of the company’s current 5,000-SF location.
A change of address will require a month of downtime to get all the needed Federal Aviation Administration paperwork squared away along with an inspection to complete the recertification process.
Conservatively, annual sales are expected to top $2 million for the first time.
“This is a huge year for us,” said Reneé Garris, sales and marketing manager at Aircraft Interior Solutions.
Last year, Aircraft Interior Solutions also had to contend with the aftermath from “an act of God” in addition to a drawn-out review by the FAA that postponed the rollout of the side-slip seat.
The damage was delivered by a lightning strike that hit its building at 5100 W. Bethany Road on Jan. 20, 2016. Someone had stolen the building’s copper grounding wire, and the electrical discharge flowed to the telephone system.
That fried the security system and prevented alarms from triggering when the resulting pyrotechnics caused the plywood mounting for the circuit breaker box to catch fire.
Of the $85,000 in damages, $60,000 was due to smoke-damaged materials. Insurance paid only $10,000.
“It was a mess,” Jacobs said.
The fire effectively put the company out of business for five months and cost it three big contracts and about $200,000 in lost revenue.
Even with this setback, revenue from a partial 2016 matched the $1 million-plus performance for a full 2015.
And clients who had to turn to other vendors came back after operations returned to normal.
“They didn’t come back as fast as they thought, and that sucked,” Jacobs said. “But they are back full bore now.”
The company is finishing up upholstery work for the demonstration models of the side-slip seat in preparation for a big international trade show in Germany April 4-6, Aircraft Interiors Expo Hamburg 2017.
“All these people are going to be talking about our company,” said Jacobs, adding in a whisper: “And it didn’t cost us a dime.”
The staggered side-slip design, which locks in place, also features a slightly larger 20-inch-wide middle seat with two armrests while its neighbors have only one.
A creation of Molon Labe Designs in Breckenridge, Colorado, the novel three-seat configuration allows the aisle seat to slide over the middle seat with the push of a button.
This unusual capability converts a standard 20-inch airline aisle into a 41-inch thoroughfare. That makes full-size wheelchair access possible and dealing with overhead storage easier.
The design was envisioned to speed up the boarding and deplaning of passengers, saving airlines precious minutes per turnaround. That can translate into financial savings in terms of improved fleet utilization and maintaining flight schedules.
Meantime, work at Aircraft Interior Solutions has shifted back to fulfilling a contract for more than 3,000 conventional seats for 23 Boeing 737s for Caribbean Airlines.
After a bumpy 2016, the company is positioning itself for more opportunity in the commercial airlines industry. It’s a business where seat framing is replaced every five to seven years, cushions every two years and seat covers every 12-18 months.