New life for old jets: How cabin refurbishments deliver on sustainability as well as comfort

As demand for air travel continues to surge, airlines are holding onto their planes for longer and working hard to make sure nobody notices.

While the pandemic disruption might feel like a lifetime ago to most of us, aviation is still recovering. Supply chains aren’t functioning as they should, and deliveries of new aircraft have been stalled.

With airlines forced to hold onto aircraft for longer, many have taken the plunge and decided to update these old planes with brand-new interiors. Usually, new cabins are debuted on brand new jets, but as these jets aren’t coming fast enough, passengers flying in older aircraft are now being treated to updated cabins.

Etihad recently announced it would invest around $1 billion (€920 million) in refitting its Boeing 777 and 787 aircraft as new planes are taking too long to arrive. Emirates is going even further, spending as much as $5 bn (€4.6 bn) on new interiors for its planes.

Euronews Travel went to see what goes into making an old aircraft look like new, and how these cabin refurbishments deliver more than just passenger comfort.

How to make an old aircraft look brand new

Although airlines like Emirates and Etihad are spending billions on new interiors, you’re unlikely to experience them unless you’re flying long haul. Airlines are taking care of short-haul flyers too, however, with several carriers undertaking significant overhauls of their smaller planes.

Finland’s flag carrier Finnair has recently undertaken a refit of its long-haul Airbus A330 fleet, installing its new business class interiors to bring it into line with its newly delivered A350s. With that complete, it was time to turn its attention to its regional aircraft.

Getting a revamp now is Finnair’s fleet of 12 Embraer E190s, which have an average age of 16.8 years. Operated by its regional partner Norra, some of these aircraft are pushing 19 years old, but thanks to a fresh new look, you’d never know it.

“We see this renewal as an important investment in travel comfort, and our aim is to provide a harmonious, fresh and inviting travel environment for our customers,” explains Eeva Mttila, engineer at Finnair Technical Operations.

Finnair invited Euronews Travel to Exeter Airport in the UK to see one of the Embraers undergoing its refit. To avoid disruption to flight schedules, Finnair timed these refits with scheduled maintenance visits, when the aircraft would’ve been out of action anyway. Even better, when maintenance is carried out on the aircraft, the seats are removed as part of the process. This time the engineers simply installed the new seats.

It takes around a month to carry out the maintenance on the aircraft. Simply refitting the cabin wouldn’t have taken as long, but by combining the two processes in one visit, there’s less downtime for the planes. Exeter Aerospace, based at Exeter Airport, are able to take care of both jobs, making the process seamless for the airline.

When we arrived, the aircraft was empty except for two pairs of seats that had been installed just so we could try them out. Despite their slimline appearance, the seats were remarkably comfortable, with plenty of legroom and good support for your back. The light grey leather finish looks fresh and modern and will give the aircraft an airy, spacious feel.

The carpet wasn’t installed when we visited, but that will also be replaced. These changes bring these regional jets in line with Finnair’s main fleet, using similar materials, colours and finishes. There’s even a small wood panel by the entrance door that echoes the airline’s use of wood in its business class cabins for long-haul flights.

These planes will fly to several destinations in Finland and Europe, including Manchester, Edinburgh, Paris and Dublin. Flight times average around an hour and a half, so the journeys are fairly short. But will all planes have the new cabin?

“Right now, if you fly an Embraer route, you might have the renewed cabin, or you may not – it’s a matter of luck,” explains Marjo Hamalainen, communications partner at Finnair. “But as we move forward with the renewals, you are more and more likely to get the renewed cabin, and by spring ‘26, we’ll have the entire fleet renewed, and then you are guaranteed to experience the renewed cabin.”

So far, three aircraft have been completed and this fourth one is almost finished. By May, six will be done. During the peak summer, Finnair needs all its Embraers back in service, so there’s a short break before the process starts again in the autumn. By this time next year, all 12 aircraft will be flying with the new cabins.

Why are airlines keeping older aircraft longer?

It may seem like a cop-out to keep blaming the pandemic, but for aviation, the knock-on effects are real. Aerospace manufacturers of all shapes and sizes have struggled to re-establish production lines, and broken supply chains have taken time to mend.

Emirates had planned to begin receiving Boeing’s brand new 777X aircraft in 2020, but it still hasn’t had a single delivery. Boeing’s latest promise was for arrival in October 2025, but the airline’s management remains sceptical. With no new planes to fly, it has to hold onto its older aircraft for longer, hence the massive multi-billion dollar refurbishment programme.

The project was originally meant to include 120 aircraft at a cost of $2 billion (€1.8 billion). But as production delays ground on, Emirates expanded it in 2024 to 191 jets. In early March, Emirates CEO Sir Tim Clark revealed an even further expansion, with a total of 220 aircraft to be refurbished at a cost of $5 billion ($4.6 billion).

“We have no choice,” Clark told reporters at the ITB tourism fair in Berlin on 5 March. “This is the only way we could sustain the network, grow the network.”

“The main driver for this refurbishment program was the delay in the delivery of new aircraft,” explains Ahmed Safa, Head of Engineering at Emirates. “Boeing says the 777-9 is coming in 2026, but we certainly don’t think our aircraft will come in ‘26, so we’ve had to increase the number of refurbishments.”

Boeing’s problems have been well documented, but it’s not the only bottleneck. Airbus too, has struggled to get its products out of the factory on time. With the demand for air travel continuing to surge, airlines are keen to have as many active aircraft as possible.

“From Airbus, we should have 21 A350s now, but we only have four,” Safa explains. “We want to add more destinations, which will require a lot more capacity. So the lack of new aircraft means more additions to the refurbishment programme are required.”

The impact was noted by industry body IATA in December when it revealed the global average aircraft age had risen to a record high of 14.8 years. Pre-pandemic, it was just over 13 years. That increase of 1.8 years might not seem like much, but it’s the first time since 1990 that the average age has gone above 14 years.

That ageing fleet is not only a concern for the passenger experience but also for aviation’s net zero goals. Technology in new aircraft delivers fuel burn (and associated CO2 emission) savings of around 20 per cent compared to older models It is seen as a key stepping stone to a greener aviation future.

“Manufacturers are letting down their airline customers and that is having a direct impact of slowing down airlines’ efforts to limit their carbon emissions,” says Willie Walsh, director general of IATA. “If the aircraft and engine manufacturers could sort out their issues and keep their promises, we’d have a more fuel-efficient fleet in the air.”

Can a refurbished aircraft also be a greener aircraft?

While new aircraft are taking their time to get into airlines’ hands, refurbishment offers opportunities to green up the fleet they have. Passenger comfort is important, but so too are any sustainability improvements that can be made in the process.

“Sustainability is becoming ever more important for our airline customers,” says Etienne Helfer Aubrac, VP of sales and marketing at Safran Seats, an aircraft seat manufacturer based in France. “A greener refurbishment can involve using lighter and more durable materials, integrating recycled components and optimising seat designs to reduce the carbon footprint over the aircraft’s lifespan.”

Finnair’s refurbishment focused on improving passenger comfort but also considered the impact on the environment.

Replacing the previous cloth seats with real leather would come with a high carbon cost. When cattle farming, tanning and transportation are taken into consideration, cow skin leather has a carbon footprint of approximately 110 kg of CO2 per square metre. And an aircraft cabin has a lot of square metres!

“They take leather offcuts that would otherwise end up in landfill and break them down into fibres,” explains Eeva Mattila, an engineer at Finnair Technical Operations. “Then they use recycled water to turn them into a new recycled leather material.”

This leather material has a carbon footprint up to 85 per cent lower than that of traditional leather, and it’s more lightweight too. These benefits have made this product a popular choice for airlines, flying on over four million seats worldwide today.

Weight saving is a significant focus for any airline. Every kilogram of extra weight means more fuel burned and more CO2 emissions. Refurbishing a cabin is a great opportunity to take some of the weight off the aircraft and create a more efficient plane.

Finnair’s Recaro seats are widely used in aviation as they combine slimline, lightweight construction with ergonomic comfort. Using composite materials and high-performance plastics, the seats are able to withstand the punishment of many flights and weigh significantly less than the airline’s old seats.

When KLM refurbished its Boeing 737s in 2021, it also opted for recycled leather and installed similar Recaro seats, which were 20 per cent lighter than those they replaced. This, it said, reduced the total cabin weight by 700 kg, saving 184 tonnes of CO2 per aircraft per year.

Air France picked carbon fibre and titanium for its Embraer refurbishment, designing an ultra-lightweight seat with recycled components and as little plastic as possible. Custom-made by French manufacturer Expliseat, each seat will be 30 per cent lighter than the current model.

As well as lighter seats and sustainable materials, Finnair’s changes to the onboard lighting have also taken weight off the plane. Their decision not to install power to each seat, which probably wouldn’t be needed on short flights anyway, was also driven by a desire not to add weight to the planes.

For Finnair, the changes they are making to the Embraers will reduce the onboard weight by 150 kg per aircraft. Once all 12 have been completed, the airline will save about 135,000 kg of fuel annually and reduce CO2 emissions by 420,000 kg per year. That’s the same as taking more than 400 cars off the road.

What happens to the old interiors when aircraft are refurbished?

Airlines have come up with a variety of innovative solutions to deal with their used seats and interiors. Depending on the condition of the materials, as well as the airline’s policies, the components are reused, repurposed, or recycled.

Material from seats can be reused in carpet yarn. Metal components are melted down and recycled. Plastics used in cabins can be harder to repurpose, but several companies are working on solutions to reuse and recycle them efficiently.

Emirates came up with a novel idea for its old interiors, turning some of them into limited-edition travel luggage. From suitcases made using seat leather to toiletry bags fashioned from captain’s chair fur, the airline has been upcycling all sorts of parts from its old interiors.

“Of course we worked wth suppliers to produce lighter materials and sub parts for the seats,” says Amhed Safa, “but our contribution to the green effort has been bolstered by how we’ve repurposed and upcycled the removed parts, the surplus parts and the scrap parts.”

Emirates wants to ‘upcycle’ almost everything it is taking off the aircraft. “My mandate to the guys is anything that’s destined for scrappage must be targeted for an upcycling activity,” says Safa. “We started with the easier ones – the soft furnishings, leathers and fabrics, the curtains and the carpets and all that stuff.

“We’ve made huge strides there and produced some really cool stuff. Now the next step is to employ the appropriate skill set to help us look at the more solid elements from the cabin, the aluminiums and the composites and the other plastics.”

Emirates does offer some of these products for sale, and Safa says the demand has been exceptional. But this isn’t a profit-making exercise. “When we first pitched the idea of recycling, we were inundated with interest from companies who wanted to take the stuff and then repurpose it and sell it for profit, and that went against the intent of our mission.”

Emirates was determined to bring benefits to the wider community from its upcycling efforts. It has already donated thousands of products to schools, NGOs and community groups in several African countries, and has a plan to do the same in India, Pakistan and other places. While a small proportion of its ‘Aircrafted by Emirates’ range is available for sale to the general public, the proceeds from those sales will also go to support communities in need.

For Finnair, its old seats, or at least some of them, have found a new home with other airlines. Although they’re a bit tired for Finnair, budget carriers and airlines from developing countries will find they’re just fine for their needs. Those that aren’t being sold will be reused as much as possible or recycled.

“With some of the old seats, we’ve stripped them for parts,” noted Hamalainen. “We’re still using those seats until next spring, so we will still need some spares. We are recycling as much as possible.”

Will the passenger experience really be as good?

For the average passenger, the seats and amenities are the focus of whether they have a good flight or not. Not many would know or care how old the aircraft is, as long as it’s comfortable and has everything they need.

Airlines realise this and have focused refurbishments on getting the best from the equipment they have. These aren’t cut-price refits; refurbishments are just as meticulously planned and executed as they would be in a brand-new aircraft.

“A well-executed refurbishment can bring an older aircraft up to the same comfort standards as a new one and sometimes even better,” says Aubrac. “Airlines see cabin retrofits as an opportunity to create a high-quality onboard experience, just as they do with brand-new aircraft.”

As well as changing the parts passengers see all the time, aircraft refurbishment often touches the parts of the plane we rarely encounter. Galleys, ovens, crew rest areas and even flight deck furnishings are frequently replaced as part of the process. While you might not get to see it, you will notice the difference in a happier crew, better food and well-managed processes.

Next time you’re on a plane, try to guess its age based on what you can see. Then look up its registration to see if you’re right. While brand-new aircraft are great, if you have to fly on an old one, you’ll be glad the airline invested in renewing the cabin so it feels just like new.