On location: ABC officially opens new Lioni, Italy production site
Rodolfo Baldascino, CCO, ABC International (left) and Alex Preston, Senior Editor, PAX Tech, at the official inauguration of the company's new Lioni, Italy production site
Italian aircraft interior modification specialist ABC International has officially inaugurated its new production facility in Lioni, Italy, approximately 100 kilometres from Naples International Airport.
Local dignitaries, suppliers and international guests, including PAX Tech Senior Editor Alex Preston, were in attendance to witness the ribbon cutting ceremony, which comes just 10 months after the company purchased two modular blocks in the recently developed and growing industrial area.
The 300-square-meter production facility is the company’s first and will support the Design Organization Approval (DOA) services offered by its Naples headquarters. Once fully operational, the Lioni site will produce cabin soft furnishings such as seat coverings, carpets and curtains, as well as labels and embroidered logos.
Crucially, it will also manufacture parts, both small series and customized, as well as partitions and small monuments for aircraft, in composite materials.
Taking time out from the celebrations Rodolfo Baldascino, ABC Chief Commercial Officer, tells PAX Tech that the facility is undergoing the process to obtain Part-21 subpart G Production Organization Approval (POA) from EASA, which it expects to be granted in the first quarter of 2026.
According to Baldascino, the €1 million+ (US$1.2 million) investment demonstrates ABC’s vision and willingness to compete in the cabin interiors design modification and material support sector, especially for retrofit projects, which he admits is cyclical in nature. The new plant, he says, will give the company continuity and stability to its production line.
“We have the ability to design cabin monuments, because we have DOA. Our engineering offices are located in the nearby airport, and what is designed there will be mainly manufactured here. What is important to say today, we are already able to serve the market with the engineering packages and the associated products with their own certification. Of course, we do all the manufacturing and certification of the products today through the supply chain,” Baldascino says, adding reassuringly that, “We will not dismiss that part of the business model. We will not say “from now, okay, we have our own theory. We will do everything in-house. No, because supply chain, it's a value. It's a value that we want to keep nurturing.”
The new capability will also help ABC manage costs and better manage the production process.
Seated beside Baldascino, Olindo Spatola, ABC’s Vice President of Engineering and HDO explains that the company is interested in the ‘know how’. He says that they know how to design, but they must have the know how to manufacture, so they can best fit the supply chain.
Olindo Spatila, VP Engineering and HDO at ABC
“Because the manufacturing is feeding the design and is improving the design. It is a chain,” he states.
The new Lioni site is the latest piece of ABC’s continuing focus on providing a more diversified range of certified, airworthy products and services with greater value
“We do not want to be seen just as the cabin branding specialist, because we can do, and we know how to do, much more, and the market is recognizing us.”
In November 2024, for example, the company entered into a strategic alliance with India’s AeroChamp Aviation to deliver a wide range of services and products for airline cabin interiors worldwide.
“But we do not want to deny and do not to want to dismiss our branding career. It is important that the market will not perceive us anymore just as branding.”
As Baldascino states, signaling the site, “we are much more than, much more than that… as this plant is witnessing.”
See more photos from the event below:
