How it's made

An airliner reaches the end of its life

Commercial aircraft are retired for economics, not failure. After two or three decades and tens of thousands of pressurisation cycles, maintenance and fuel costs overtake the value of keeping an airframe flying. It makes one final flight to a teardown facility.

The valuable parts come off first

Engines, avionics, landing gear and thousands of serialised components are removed, inspected and returned to service on other aircraft. What remains is the structure - including the painted skin.

We acquire fuselage panels

We source panels from that structure: the exterior aluminium that carried the airline's livery through every flight the aircraft ever made. This is the part that was exposed to the weather, the altitude and the sunlight for the aircraft's whole working life.

Cut, deburred, sealed

Panels are cut by hand. Every edge is deburred and sealed so the piece is safe to handle and stable indoors. The paint is left untouched - including the wear, the rivet lines and the marks the aircraft accumulated in service.

Documented and packed

Each piece is matched to the registration of the airframe it came from and packed with a certificate naming that aircraft.