MARYSVILLE – In the next few years, first-class passengers on a Middle Eastern airline, business travelers in Siberia and cargo shippers in rural Alaska all will have one thing in common – Flight Structures Inc. of Marysville.
In a region dominated by billion-dollar Boeing Co. jet deals, smaller companies such as FSI tend to fly under the radar.
But in recent months, FSI – a subsidiary of Florida-based B/E Aerospace – has pulled in some high-profile contracts worth more than $100 million. They include:
* In March, B/E was picked to provide the interiors for Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Co.’s new Russian Regional Jet. FSI is overseeing the work, doing the project management and integration, and getting it certified by regulatory agencies. The program got its launch customer in July, when Russian airline Sibir announced an order for 50 of the planes at the Farnborough Air Show.
* In July, Emirates airline of Dubai awarded an $80 million contract to B/E to provide “first class suites” for its fleet of 31 new Airbus A380s. The suites are essentially cabins-within-cabins, providing a private luxury seating areas for first-class passengers. B/E followed that with a $30 million contract with Qantas to provide similar first-class suites for its fleet of 12 A380s. FSI again will do the engineering and project management for the projects.
* Also in July, B/E received a $15 million contract for designing and overseeing the conversion of five of Alaska Airlines’s older 737s. Four of the 737-400s will be converted to passenger and cargo-carrying “combis” that will serve rural Alaskan communities, while the fifth will be a full cargo conversion.
All together, “there’s a much more positive air than there was six months ago,” said Keith Aakre, FSI’s vice president and general manager. “It’s looking significantly better. We’re on the upward slope.”
B/E Aerospace specializes in aircraft interiors, seating and systems such as food and beverage equipment. It has facilities across the United States and in the United Kingdom. About 60 percent of the revenues come from retrofitting planes already in service.
The Flight Structures unit in Marysville is the systems integrator and project manager for the entire company, Aakre said.
“We’re basically consultants,” he said. “We figure out how you integrate this sort of equipment into an airline environment.”
The majority of the 160-or-so people working at FSI are project managers, designers and certification experts. For the most part, they take designs, figure out which parts of them should be built by their B/E sister companies and which by outside vendors, and oversee the process of getting the parts manufactured, assembled and installed.
FSI also does assembly work in Marysville. It’s where the company builds crew rest stations for the Boeing Co.’s 777 jets – the lower-lobe bunks that go into the holds of older-model 777s and the overhead rests for the new extended-range planes.
The Marysville shop will likely get some assembly work on the new Russian Regional Jet, Aakre said, but that’s still being determined.
The RRJ deal represents big potential for both Flight Structures and its parent company.
Russian aerospace groups Sukhoi, Illyushin and Yakovlev are working together on the project, with assistance from the Boeing Co., to build a family of 60-, 75- and 95-seat jets.
The target market is airlines in the former Soviet Union, but the plane is being designed to meet European and American certification standards, which would allow it to operate in most of the world.
Sukhoi is reportedly in talks with Air France and Finnair about potential orders, and the company optimistically says it will sell around 800 of the planes.
That would be big for FSI, Aakre said. “Hopefully that’ll go on for 10 or 20 years.”
The interior of a regional jet used to haul mining engineers around Siberia will be far different from FSI’s other big new project, the A380 first class suites.
B/E corporate spokesman Ed Harper described them as being “similar to a stateroom on a train, very similar to what you’d expect to find for a head of state or VIP cabin interior.”
Qantas is still working on its plans, but Emirates has released details of units that would provide first-class passengers with a very private, very luxurious flying experience.
Each seat would be enclosed, separated from the other suites by electronic doors. Each would have its own fold-out work table and closet, a mini-bar – even personal mood lighting. The seats would fold down into beds, and each suite would have its own flat-screen monitor for in-flight entertainment.
It would be a “significant upgrade” from anything in the air now, Aakre said. “It’ll probably look a bit more like a business jet.”
FSI in Marysville now is determining who will build each part of the new interiors and how they’ll get put together for the airlines.
It’s a “small, but very sophisticated business,” Aakre said. “What we do here is we speak airplane.”
Reporter Bryan Corliss: 425-339-3454 or corliss@heraldnet.com.
Michael O’Leary / The Herald
James Ivie assembles a Boeing 777 crew rest station at Flight Structures Inc. in Marysville.
B/E Aerospace
Exterior and interior shots show the first-class suites being built by B/E Aerospace and its Flight Structures Inc. division in Marysville. These suites are for Emirates airlines’ new Airbus A380s.
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