Story ID: 5092812JetExpo
AviaPrestige Brings Cabin Refurbs to Russian Owners
By: Vladimir Karnozov
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Word Count: 373
Russian aircraft interiors specialist AviaPrestige has forged an alliance with business aviation services group Avcom to make cabin refurbishment more readily available to aircraft owners in Russia. At Jet Expo this week in Moscow, the company announced that it has established a facility within the Avcom’s engineering base at Moscow Domodedovo Airport so that interior work can be done while aircraft are undergoing maintenance there.

“With this agreement in place, our customers can not only service and repair their aircraft in our center, but also get their interior repaired or renewed at the same time, which minimizes their airplanes’ down time,” said Avcom chairman Eugeny Bakhtin. “Avcom is not a specialist in interiors, so instead of developing that capability in-house, we decided to rely on our partners from AviaPrestige.”

AviaPrestige general director Vitaly Romanyuk told AIN that the move is aimed at expanding his company’s core business and its presence at Moscow airports, as well as at other Russian locations by working through Avcom’s growing network of maintenance stations. “Right now we offer repair services under our national certificates and the [U.S] FAR Part 145 certificate, but we are on our way to winning FAR 21 certification for the production parts for interiors,” said Romanyuk. “We have passed the preliminary inspections, which makes us believe that we can win approval for engineering work early next year.”

AviaPrestige already has facilities at Moscow Sheremetyevo and Vnukovo Airports, where it has representatives doing assessment work on aircraft interiors and giving owners suggestions for renovations, as well as a small team of mechanics to do urgent repairs. Its main production facilities are located in the suburb of Lubertsy and near Sheremetyevo.

So far, AviaPrestige has performed cabin completions or refurbished more than 80 aircraft, including VIP versions of Russian Mi-8 family helicopters, as well as various executive versions of Russian-made airliners, including the Ilyushin Il-96 widebodies operated by the Russian government. The company also works closely with the Vemina fashion group and other members of Russia’s AKAI aircraft interiors trade association. In addition, AviaPrestige supports U.S. company B/E Aerospace in providing warranty support for the interiors of Sukhoi’s new Superjet 100 airliner.