Building Interiors at Yingling Aviation

When Angie Saggerson joined Yingling Aviation more than 22 years ago, the Wichita-based MRO did not have an interior shop, associated equipment, or a dedicated team. The company, which is celebrating its 80th anniversary, had been a longtime Cessna authorized facility and brought Saggerson on board to manage a Caravan project that evolved into the Oasis interior. 

Since then, she has grown the department into a multimillion-dollar program that manages an array of business aircraft, according to the company. And she stresses that most of the furnishings are developed in-house.

“When I started, we did not have a sewing machine. We did not have any employees [in the interior shop],” she told AIN. Saggerson, who is senior director of interior completions at Yingling, had brought over design experience from Cessna, beginning her career as an interior design coordinator at Cessna Aircraft. But that was just the start of a learning curve.

She and her growing department had to learn the art of obtaining supplemental type certificates for fitting interiors and engineering them in general. The team also learned how to obtain parts manufacturer approval for building their own furnishings. Basically, she said, they learned the “big picture” of how things fit together.

While developing novel interior concepts is always a welcome challenge, Saggerson said her favorite completions projects tend to center around the customer. That holds true with the Caravan Oasis.  That project “will always be near and dear to me,” with more than 300 delivered to date, Saggerson said, adding that she has worked with “lots of amazing customers through the years that I’m still in touch with today.”

The interior refreshes the cabin for an aircraft long known as an industry workhorse with higher-end finishings and elevated seating with a selection of leather, fabric, and cabinetry finishings based around a handful of color schemes. Layouts can be configured for up to 11 places, including crew, and options for club seating and a divan. The interiors are offered with entertainment systems and optional flight data displays.

While that project has been ongoing for a few decades, a relatively newer project for her department is the Eagle program that Yingling has worked on in concert with Citation Partners. This involves a complete overhaul of the Cessna Citation 560, including full interior, paint, and an upgrade to Garmin G5000 avionics.

“We would take a worn-out aircraft and give it new life,” Saggerson said. “It was great to see our customers’ excitement on delivery day.”

The Eagle program offers more diversity in customer options, she said, and it lends itself to many more detailed designs from leather sidewalls and redesigned seating with enhanced foam. She noted that she’s worked with a range of customer tastes from a clean white European look to the traditional tans.

But a highlight of this program was working with the late Russ Meyer, the former Cessna Aircraft chief who had long championed industry causes and is enshrined in the National Aviation Hall of Fame. Meyer helped launch Citation Partners.

In 2024, Yingling spread its wings once more and grew into large cabins with refurbishments already completed on the Gulfstream G550, along with Bombardier Challengers and Globals. The flat floors and larger cabins provide more room for additional design features and creativity on interiors, mixing in different patterns and textures, she said. This is particularly true with the carpets. “I like to start with the carpets.”

The more than two decades of design experience equipped the Yingling design team for the jump to larger cabins. The biggest adjustments involved expectations surrounding lead times. Plating work may take six to eight weeks on a Global versus three to four on the Cessna 560, she cited as an example.

But this new foray has quickly snowballed, she said, noting that over the holidays, Yingling had three Gulfstreams in-house simultaneously. That has continued, driven in part by aircraft coming in for in-flight connectivity upgrades and seeking refurbishments at the same time. “Right now our interiors department is on-fire busy.”

As for her favorite work, Saggerson said that it really isn’t about the project itself. “The absolute best part of any project is the customer. It doesn’t matter if we are working on a Cessna 182 or a Gulfstream; the customer sets the tone for the project,” she said. “I still get excited when a project is complete, and the customer gets to see their vision come to life.”