It's plastic fantastic for EgyptAir

Posted on 9 August 2010 in Flight Services & Support.

EgyptAir is the only airline to manufacture its own plastics for aircraft interior, as well as manufacturing for other airlines.

Aero Plast, part of EgyptAir’s Supplementary Industries, a subsidiary of EgyptAir Holding Company, has its large factory located a few minutes from Cairo International Airport.

“We manufacture all the injection plastic used for catering on aircraft such as the cutlery, the plates and glasses as well as the plastic covering for sugar, creamers and the towel refreshers,” said Kamel Mansour, chairman consultant.

“We also manufacture the plastic of the spare parts for the aircraft, particularly the seats, which is JAA certified.”

The subsidiary started up in 2004 and rapidly grew in to a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week manufacturing facility.

“We have a production section and a machine section and currently have 320 staff working on a shift basis so the machines are constantly running. Imagine the hundreds of passengers a day that all use the cutlery, which is then thrown away, apart from the catering equipment used in Business Class and First Class sections that keeps for longer,” said Mansour.

The former General in the Egyptian Air Force has been chairman of the plant for four months and has already increased the company’s facility by buying three more production machines.

“When the factory first started out six years ago there were just four industrial machines and today we have 20. We buy them from all over the world, from Germany to Taiwan , but everything else needed, like the raw materials such as the sugars and creamers, we work with local supply companies.”

EgyptAir is the only airline to produce its own plastic materials.

“We also manufacture for Nile Airlines, Yemen Airlines, Libyan Airlines and Nigerian Airlines, as well as VIP jets and we hope to add to that list. We are a very progressive facility here,” said Mansour. “We make the designs here and we produce moulds with the CNC machines. Once an order is in we make the logo and start producing the moulds. From design to delivery it takes around two months. Obviously once that mould is set it is ongoing.”

Mansour is looking to the future. “We’re aiming to get new machines for injection forming as well as increasing the product line in the next year or two,” he said. “We are also looking at new machines for the raw materials for the plastics and aiming to increase the product line for the spare parts for the aircraft as well as making the maintenance and repair for all airlines.”