May 19, 2016 – The first customer for Inairvation’s pre-engineered retrofit cabin solution for Bombardier Global aircraft types has been secured by Flying Colours Corp.
The company was named a partner by Austria-based Inairvation, a joint venture between Lufthansa Technik and F/List, during NBAA 2015. The client confirmed the order in late April 2016, and Flying Colours Corp is already working with its European partners on the design engineering. The aircraft is scheduled to arrive at Flying Colours Corp’s facility in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, in the fourth quarter of 2016, with re-delivery anticipated for the first quarter of 2017.
The launch customer has selected the baseline Inairvation package: the cabin will include Lufthansa Technik’s ‘nice HD’ IFE/CMS, integrated into sideledges manufactured by F/List. The Inairvation components are part of a larger cabin refurbishment project. The Global Express will undergo extensive reconfiguration of just about every part of its interior. The seats are to be replaced with Global 6000 frames and covered in a variety of exotic leathers.
The lighting system will offer a rainbow spectrum of choices, all controlled by the ‘nice HD’ CMS. A stone granite floor will be installed in the entrance, galley area, forward lavatory and aft lavatory. Carbon fiber veneers will enhance the interior’s contemporary styling. The final designs are expected to be ready by the end of June 2016. The exterior of the aircraft will also be repainted with a custom scheme using all metallic paints. The retrofit will be certified via an STC obtained by Flying Colours Corp.
“We are really pleased to have signed up the first customer for the Inairvation offering,” said Sean Gillespie, executive vice president at Flying Colours Corp. “Having worked with the customer before on a number of other projects, he trusts our engineering design experience, and knows we will effectively realize his cabin vision. We explored a number of options for him, but he chose the Inairvation concept knowing that, combined with our interior capabilities, it was the most cost- and time-efficient solution for him. He really appreciates the value the Inairvation elements bring to the mix.”
“When we started the joint venture, we had concerns that it could take us a while to really bring across the added value of the Inairvation offering to the market,” said Philip von Schroeter, Inairvation co-CEO.
“Our excellent partnership with Flying Colours Corp helped us to quickly develop the joint retrofit offering for the Bombardier Global family. The fact that only six months after the announcement of our retrofit program we are well into our first project, with more in the pipeline, shows that we must have hit a sweet spot in the market. Inairvation and its shareholders Lufthansa Technik and F/List are very pleased with this outcome.”
