Airbus is giving aviation enthusiasts the chance to furnish their homes with striking furniture items recycled – or ‘upcycled’ – from end-of-life aircraft parts.
The ‘A Piece in the Sky’ initiative was showcased at Airbus’ Innovation Days, held at the Leadership University Centre in Toulouse last month.
Airbus employees Anaïs Mazaleyrat and Jérémy Brousseau thought up the innovative idea at an Internal Training program at Airbus’ Leadership University in Toulouse in 2017. It was then picked up by Airbus BizLab, the company’s global network to support start-ups in 2018.
There’s currently a small pre-order collection available online, with delivery scheduled for January 2020. Within the collection, customers can purchase items such as a side table crafted from an A320 cabin window frame and a smart mirror, made from an A320 cabin window frame.
The mirror is also a connected device which will inform you of the weather forecast and outside temperature. Those looking for more exclusive pieces can choose instead to browse the limited collection, though the opportunity to slouch in the nose of an A350 has disappeared, as the Cloud chair conceived by Christelle Doutey has already sold for €7000.
Other limited-edition pieces include the mechanical-looking Spine X chair, crafted from rare Elm wood and an aluminium wing rib from the Airbus Flight Test Centre. Conceived by Fabien Puginier and Faustine Milard, the set of 5 chairs, each with a slightly different form, costs €1500.
Set to be delivered this month, the Moon Crater is another eye-catching design by Bertrand Marc.
The dinner table has been constructed from an A380 jet engine used by the Airbus Flight Test centre, and combined with titanium, pale wood and glass.
The initiative also feeds into Airbus’ commitment to sustainability, with an emphasis on reusing materials before recycling them.
Airlines have also got on board with the notion of upcycling, with Delta donating old returned uniforms to charitable organisations, and transforming them into backpacks, travel kits and passport covers.
