A Dedicated Centre of Excellence

Our Journey

Thompson Aero Seating is one of the leading suppliers of Business and First Class aircraft seating, with a worldwide customer base featuring many of the world’s top airlines including Delta, Qantas and SWISS Airlines. With increasing market share and an evolving and expanding product portfolio  Thompson’s seats are installed upon all major aircraft types from Airbus and Boeing including the A380 and Boeing B787 Dreamliner.

Today, under the ownership of AVIC (Aviation Industry Corporation of China), one of the world’s largest and leading aerospace companies, we are one of Northern Ireland’s most successful and fastest growing businesses. Recent years have seen a rapid growth in our order book with around 700 staff across 4 sites located in the Portadown and Banbridge areas which includes full design, engineering, manufacturing and R&D capabilities. With Thompson’s planned future growth and expansion plans being backed and endorsed by AVIC, together with the ability to offer a broader range of cabin interior products under the recently created AVIC Cabin Systems (ACS) division, the Thompson success story looks well set to continue.

Having identified the need for improved, more efficient aircraft seating solutions and following several years of research and development, the Vantage concept, a full flat horizontal bed was created to address these disadvantages.

Several airlines, including Swiss and Delta airlines, were quick to identify the benefits of the space saving Vantage concept, and in 2009 under a license agreement from Thompson the first of the Vantage line entered production.

In February 2011, to meet the increased demand, Thompson’s first production facility was secured at the Seagoe Industrial Park, Portadown, Northern Ireland, and the manufacture of the first Thompson Vantage seats began.

Early 2016 saw the delivery of the first Thompson seats to the Boeing final assembly line in Seattle as SWISS installed a fully customised version of the Thompson Vantage Business Class seat on their new B777s. This was followed in April, at the annual Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg, with confirmation that the Thompson Vantage and Vantage XL products would now be selectable from the Airbus BFE Catalogues for the A330 and A320 family, with A350 and A380 platforms to follow.

Thompson also strengthened its position in the North American market with the announcement to supply Delta’s new A350 fleet with the new Thompson Vantage XL Suite. Based upon the Vantage XL platform the XL Suite will be the first business class cabin to feature a sliding door for every customer.

Quality & Approvals

EASA Part 21G Certification UK. 21G. 2638 (until 29th March after Brexit it will be EASA.UK.21G.2638)
EASA Part 21A.602B(b)(2) Approval EASA.305
EASA PART145 Certification UK.145.01290 (until 29th March after Brexit it will be EASA.UK.145.01290)
AS EN 9100 Rev D Certification FM 540498
TCCA CAR 573 AMO TCCA 814-05
FAR145 6TOY336C

 

The Thompson seating range is available across all Airbus (A320F, A330, A350 and A380) and Boeing (B737, B757, B767, B777 and B787) platforms.