Matthias Kollmeyer stores hundreds of disused aircraft rows on a small farm in Melle-Neuenkirchen on the border with Spenge. And a 24-meter-long train backdrop has also recently been added to his repertoire. His customers mainly include companies that build exhibition stands. In the meantime, Kollmeyer also rents his sets for large film productions.
The story of “meinflugzeugsitz.de” began in 2005 in a 5-person flat share in Mannheim. “Together with my roommate from Lower Bavaria, with whom I studied business administration, I saw a report on an aircraft cemetery on television,” recalls Matthias Kollmeyer. The students considered getting into the aircraft business and writing their thesis on this subject. “There is a secondary market in the flight sector, but it was initially difficult to make contacts,” says the 40-year-old.
The students began with two seats that they stored in their shared apartment. “Of course it was difficult to put more of these bulky seats under there,” says Kollmeyer. Little by little they gained a foothold in the business. When the friends were given the opportunity to remove 750 rows of seats from the Iberia airline, a warehouse was needed. “We found a suitable space in my home town of St. Annen,” reports the trained banker.
While Matthias Kollmeyer and his buddy initially tried to sell to private customers, Meller took over the business alone in 2010 and focused on leasing, which he now continues to do as a sideline in Neuenkirchen. “Now and then we have rows of seats to sell,” says Kollmeyer, who claims that privately he has no weakness for airplanes.
So he regularly – at least before the corona pandemic – erects aircraft walls and seats on exhibition stands or for events. “That’s a real eye-catcher,” says Kollmeyer. He has also equipped the “sky bar” in the village pub with airplane seats. If you want, you can also book the right accessories – trolleys, pilot seats or a galley.
This year, its range has been expanded to include a train backdrop. “It was built by Bavaria Filmstudios for a Netflix production,” explains Matthias Kollmeyer, who is now renting it – like his airplane sets – to production companies. The interest is great, because an airplane is otherwise only in the film studio in Babelsberg.
But the constant assembly and dismantling is not only time-consuming, costly and personnel-intensive, the scenery also suffers. “My goal is therefore to build a small television studio in which the production companies can shoot on site,” says Kollmeyer. For this he is now looking for the right plot of land that also has more storage space – preferably in Melle or Spenge.
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