Boeing and Adient combine to manufacture airplane seats

Boeing is entering into a joint venture with automotive seat manufacturer Adient to develop and produce airplane seats. Boeing will hold a 49.99 percent stake in the new company, Adient Aerospace, which will be located in Kaiserslautern, near Frankfurt, Germany.
The move comes at a time when the aerospace industry is witnessing a number of companies teaming up together to supply and manufacture aircraft components. In September, United Technologies announced it was buying Rockwell Collins, which makes airplane engines, while Rockwell had announced its intention to buy airplane seat manufacturer B/E Aerospace the previous year. Zodiac Aerospace, the French aircraft interiors group is being taken over by French aero-engine maker Safran this year in an €8.7bn (US$10.4bn) deal that will create one of the world’s biggest aerospace suppliers with annual revenues of €21bn (US$25bn).
Boeing sees this as an opportunity to avoid problems created by tardy delivery of seats for the company’s current record numbers of jet sales, a problem which has recently plagued rival airline Airbus. Both Boeing’s 777 and Airbus’ marquee A350 were affected by delays of seat deliveries from Zodiac Aerospace.
According to Kevin Schemm, chief financial officer for Boeing Commercial Airplanes: “Seats have been a persistent challenge for our customers, the industry and Boeing, and we are taking action to help address constraints in the market.”
Boeing has the potential to now reap the benefits of a recurring revenue as, according to Henry Harteveldt, founder of the Atmosphere Research Group “An airline might be buying an airplane every 20 years,” adding that airlines refurbish their cabins generally within a decade.
It is understood that the airplane seating market is worth an estimated US$4.5 billion annually.