The next time you take your seat on a commercial flight, you may be sitting on craftsmanship that began in a small coastal town in Northern Ireland.
Kilkeel, a community many travelers have never heard of, is home to one of the world’s largest and longest-established aircraft seating manufacturing facilities. Founded in 1967 as Aircraft Furnishing Ltd with just five employees, the plant has grown into a cornerstone of the region. Today,the site employs more than 800 people, the majority drawn from Kilkeel and its surrounding communities.
Now operating as part of Collins Aerospace, a Raytheon Technologies company, the Kilkeel site plays a critical role in the company’s interiors business. From aircraft seating and tray tables to lavatories and life-rafts, the facility produces many of the components passengers rely on every day.
This is where Ansomat helps bring the process to life.
Inside the 215,000-square-foot manufacturing hall, complete seat assemblies are built for airlines across the globe, including major carriers such as Copa, Delta, EgyptAir and JetBlue. To manage this complexity, Collins organizes its seat production into 11 dedicated assembly lines: seven for economy and premium economy seating, and four for business and first-class suites.
For economy seating, Collins has refined the process to near-perfection. A full three-seat economy section can be assembled in as little as nine to eleven minutes.
On the EgyptAir production line, roughly 20 operators work in synchrony, each responsible for a clearly defined task. At every station, workers are guided by digital instruction screens powered by Ansomat Operator Guidance. These step-by-step workflows replace paper manuals, ensuring that every assembly task is performed correctly, consistently and in line with the latest engineering standards.
Parts availability is coordinated by the sourcing team, ensuring each workstation is always fully stocked. The first operator builds the seat base before passing it smoothly to the next station. Instead of lifting heavy components, seats travel along platforms mounted to a continuous track system, allowing operators to focus on precision, safety and quality.
By combining highly skilled operators with Ansomat’s digital work instructions system, Collins Aerospace ensures that complex seat assemblies are produced efficiently without compromising quality. The result is:
From a small workshop in 1967 to a world-leading aerospace interiors facility today, the Kilkeel plant is a powerful example of how modern manufacturing excellence is achieved, and how Ansomat plays a vital role in keeping aircraft seat production moving at full speed.
