British father-daughter team upcycles scrap aircraft into elegant outdoor space

A British Recycling and restoring company run by father- daughter team of David and Emily Palmer artfully restores a chunk of an aircraft body meant for scrapping.

David, who has already been associated with aviation industry through his business of IT recycling, has realized that that most of the airframes which are scrapped as absolute waste can be restored into a well-engineered useful structure.

His daughter Emily was doing a furniture design degree at a top London college while they decided to form a new company, Dapper Aviation and bought an old Airbus A320 from Turkish airline AtlasJet for restoration.

“It was a huge leap of faith to buy our first plane,” David said in a press release, “but we’re delighted with the result.”

The Aeropod is made of the original “well-engineered” aluminium chassis complete with insulation and fitted with aircraft windows with a highly insulated back wall and low emission glass doors. They have even kept the provision for installation of electricity and water.

ABC News reports that Aeropods come at a cost of $28,000 to $32,500. But despite the price tag, Palmer says, the company is getting inquiries for Aeropod offices, home cinemas and even a sauna. The first Aeropod by the Palmers was delivered to a garden in Suffolk back in April. That model was installed as a lounge, fitted with a coffee table made from recycled Rolls Royce jet engine.

“With access to so many varied and interesting aviation parts," Dapper website says, "the opportunities to make unique, inspiring and innovative furniture and spaces are limited only by our imaginations.”