LOT Polish Airlines is starting to install additively manufactured armrest caps on its Boeing 737 fleet. The parts were designed and manufactured by AM Craft to solve the maintenance problems caused by conventional spare parts. The company is using 3D printing to provide more durable and cost-effective solutions for cabin interiors.
The Polish airline operates a fleet of over 80 aircraft and is increasingly facing the challenge of procuring spare parts for cabin components.
“Over time, components experience wear and tear in a frequently used space like an aircraft cabin,” said Maja Margul, Continuing Airworthiness Junior Specialist at LOT Polish Airlines. “We maintain an inventory of spare parts to ensure timely replacements as needed. However, occasionally, parts wear out faster than anticipated, become unavailable from the original manufacturer, have extended lead times, or require design enhancements.
Originally, we intended to just replace the broken arm caps with replacements from the seat manufacturer, but the AM Craft part was such an improvement that we replaced all the arm caps with the 3D printed version,” said Margul.
The original design of the armrest caps consisted of a rubber surface bonded to an injection-molded plastic frame. Over time, the material transition between the rubber and plastic resulted in an unstable attachment, causing the caps to loosen or break. Due to limited availability, LOT opted for an alternative solution from AM Craft.
The company developed a new armrest cap as a one-piece 3D printed component. This eliminated the problem of material separation and increased the stability of the connection to the seat structure. For a high-quality surface finish and color accuracy, the caps were smoothed and painted to blend seamlessly with LOT’s cabin interior.
“LOT Polish Airlines has a long history of leadership in commercial aviation,” said Didzis Dejus, CEO of AM Craft. “We are proud that we were able to leverage our expertise in design and certification of 3D printed aircraft components to solve their supply chain problem with these arm caps, and we look forward to helping them address additional challenges. For commercial aviation, 3D printing has clearly become a highly impactful technology while no one was looking.”
By using Stratasys FDM technology and ULTEM 9085 filament, AM Craft was able to produce robust and fire-resistant components. The 1200 armrest caps produced were delivered with an EASA Form 1 airworthiness certificate.
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