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L for leather

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ONES TO WATCH

ONES TO WATCH

Stuart Forster takes a look at the leather market and some of the alternatives available to suppliers working with the transport industry…

Leather’s natural durability, flexibility and strength make it an attractive material for upholstery aboard aircraft, trains and ships. Scratch-resistant, it can craft long-lasting seat covers and, importantly, is naturally fire-resistant. It offers comfort to passengers and requires relatively little care from cleaning crews.

Yet several alternatives to traditional hide leather are now being used to create products for the transport industry – including amenity kits. Vegan ‘unleather’ options include Piñatex, produced using the fibres of pineapple leaves. Mylo is made from mycelium, derived from the fibrous, root-like system of mushrooms, which can be grown in vertical farming facilities that are powered by renewable electricity.

Using biomaterials

Biomaterials capture the zeitgeist of our age by being both vegan and sustainable.

Recently developed leather alternatives include apple leather, known as Appleskin, made from leftovers collected during the production of compotes and fruit juices. Apple leather can mimic snakeskin and crocodile leather, which are often used for the fabrication of upmarket products. Misel-tex, meanwhile, is made by soaking the skins of coffee beans –otherwise a waste product – to produce a pulp. Treated to make it as malleable and durable as traditional leather, Misel-tex is biodegradable. That means it can be disposed of responsibly, satisfying growing demands for the supply chain to consider the endto-end lifecycle of materials.

Some leather alternatives are now being crafted from polylactic acid (PLA), which is made from fermented plant starch and is compostable.

Synthetic leather

Of course, synthetic leathers have long been made from non-organic materials. The production costs and flexibility of polyurethane and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) make them appealing for use in everything from amenity kits to seat covers. They are also recyclable materials.

SkyLeather, a synthetic leather material manufactured by Autostop Aviation, is available in any colour and grain. Made from polyurethane, the product is 15% lighter than traditional hide leather. It is soft to the touch, offers high elasticity and SkyLeather’s durability provides resistance to heat ageing and abrasion.

“With an in-house laboratory, the seat cover manufacturing facility, adjacent to the SkyLeather production factory, delivers a one-stop-shop service, from material design to finished seat cover manufacturing, eliminating transportation costs and delays,” says Trish Sutton of the AJW Group, the owner of AJW Technique Interiors. The company supplies seat coverings and soft cabin furnishings to the aviation industry.

An alternative is produced by ELeather, whose parent company was recently renamed Generation Phoenix. Its seat covers, made from a material produced from recycled leather fibres, are used by more than 200 of the world’s airlines.

“We give new life to leather waste by transforming it into a sustainable, recycled material…We are proud of the reputation we have built as the leader in sustainable recycled leather for aviation, rail, bus and public spaces customers and therefore ELeather will remain our product brand in these markets,” explains Agnieszka Kajfasz of the parent company’s name.

Market size

According to a report published by Precedence Research in February, the overall size of the global leather goods market is forecast to grow from $420 billion in 2022 to $735 billion in 2032. That market encompasses genuine leather made from animal hides, non-organic synthetic leather as well as the various forms of vegan leather which are now avialble. The research suggests that genuine leather accounted for approximately 54.1% of the market last year.

By comparison, a report published by Grand View Research indicates that the global leather market was worth $242.85 billion in 2022. Of that, it assesses the 2022 market share of genuine leather at 53.6%.

Long tried and tested, genuine leather remains the choice of many within the transport industry.

“Customers know that they can rely on our quality of product, which is obviously really important in aircraft and aircraft seat manufacturing. They know if they put that product on their plane they can fly it for a long time with it looking really good. Some customers will fly our allleather interior for seven years – no maintenance, no spares, no engineers have to come and do replacements,” explains Archie Browning, Sales Director at Muirhead.

The Glasgow-based company introduced an active hygiene product during the pandemic. “Built into it is a chemical technology that will selfclean the leather within two hours,” says Browning, who emphasises the sustainability of leather by pointing out that hides are a by-product of the beef industry and would otherwise go into landfill.

Muirhead has also developed a LightCore, a product that is approximately one-third lighter than standard leather. Despite being used by humankind over millennia, innovation relating to leather continues, meaning that both the genuine product and a range of synthetic and biomaterial alternatives to hide look set to be used well into the future. •

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