Boeing Collaborates with Adient Aerospace to Manufacturer Airplane Seats

Boeing and Adient are collaborating in a venture called Adient Aerospace to develop and manufacture airplane seats. Boeing is the largest aerospace company in the world, and Adient is an automotive seat manufacturer under Johnson Controls Inc. The deal will be split almost 50-50, with Adient having a 0.01% advantage.

This partnership is probably in response to the increasing demand for aircrafts and more luxurious cabin space, which is a key source of revenue, from airlines. Understandably, Boeing aircraft company wants their commercial planes to be outfitted and delivered as soon as possible to customers. The partnership might also prove lucrative in refurbishing cabins of used airplanes, which often require regular maintenance within a decade.

The seats that the joint venture is planning to produce will be new and retrofitted for Boeing aircrafts as well as other leading airplane manufacturers. The project will be headquartered in Germany, near Frankfurt, with the first customer service center based in Seattle. Engineering teams from each company will be collaborating to address the industry’s need for a larger seating capacity.

The commercial aircraft seating market is expected to grow from $4.5 billion to $6 billion by 2026.

Adient is a young company based in Plymouth, Massachusetts, established in October 2016 from Johnson Controls seat manufacturing division. From the beginning, Adient is the world’s leader in seat manufacturing and accounting for 30% of the global revenue in the sector. In 2017, Adient was awarded by JD Power for their seats in the Kia Cadenza for the mass market midsize/large car category and the Porsche Cayenne for the luxury SUV category.