Significant growth in revenue for Recaro Aircraft Seating

With over 1,900 employees (2012: 1,600), Recaro Aircraft Seating achieved revenue of 337 million Euros in 2013, thus exceeding the previous year (2012: 309 million Euros). “With a growth rate of around 9 percent, we were able to increase sales significantly and continue our global growth,” explains Dr. Mark Hiller, Chief Executive Officer of Recaro Aircraft Seating. “We not only reached a new alltime high but also far exceeded our planning.”

The increase in sales is due to the innovative Recaro product portfolio. In the area of economy class seats, Recaro is the world market leader. In 2013 every third new economy class seat worldwide came from Recaro. The absolute bestseller last year was the BL3520 seat: “The winner of prestigious awards such as the red dot award 2012 has been ordered more than 200,000 times by airlines worldwide – including All Nippon Airways, Lufthansa, and Alaska Airlines and many more – since its launch in late 2010”, says Chief Sales Officer Andreas Lindemann. “In addition, business class orders, including orders from Cathay Pacific, contributed to our positive business development in 2013.”

The positive development of the company, which is among the three largest aircraft seat suppliers worldwide, is also due to the outstanding quality and delivery performance. For this reason, over the past year Airbus has transferred the full responsibility for quality control (“supplier source inspection”) to the company: Recaro Aircraft Seating is the world’s first supplier authorized to approve the entire product range of seats supplied to Airbus.

Fit for the future

In 2013 Recaro Aircraft Seating continued to invest in the expansion of capacity and future product generations in order to make the company fit for the future: “Over the past two years, we invested a total of 27 million Euros,” says Chief Sales Officer Andreas Lindemann. “We expanded our worldwide locations to accommodate the market trend and growing demand for Recaro products. In this way we doubled our international capacity.” After plant expansions in Germany, Poland, and South Africa in 2012, Recaro inaugurated the plant enlargement at the U.S. site in Dallas/Fort Worth in early 2013: With an additional building, the area was increased from 10,000 to 23,000 square meters. At the end of 2013, Recaro opened its new plant in Qingdao, China – just ten months after the groundbreaking. Since January 2014, the production plant has been officially certified – in the first half of 2014, seats will be delivered to the customer Shandong Airlines. In addition, Recaro opened its new Customer Center Middle East in Dubai in the current year with focus on sales and technical support. Last but not least, at the site in Schwaebisch Hall Recaro has invested around 3 million Euros in the systematic development of component manufacturing in order to ensure greater flexibility and speed.

The company also sees itself well prepared for the future with its new products, which were presented at the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg from April 8 to 10, 2014: “With our new long-haul seat CL6710, we have shown that we are back in the business class segment,” says Mark Hiller. The seat, which sets new standards in terms of comfort, efficiency, design, and light weight, was developed after extensive market analysis and takes into account requirements of different markets, regions, and airlines. Furthermore, the evolution of the successful BL3520 seat for the economy class was unveiled at the Aircraft Interiors Expo: The new BL3530 offers intelligent solutions that facilitate the handling of personal electronic devices.

“We are looking at the current year with a great deal of optimism: Our order books are completely filled – we expect a sales increase of around 7 percent,” says Mark Hiller. “Our workforce is expected to crack the 2,000 mark for the first time this year.” The growth trend will also continue in the medium term: “We want to support our strong position in the economy class with innovative products. In the business class segment, we expect significant growth thanks to our new product,” says Hiller. “For 2018, we are planning on sales of some 600 million Euros, and the number of employees is expected to rise to around 2,400.”