Aviation website: 120+ catalog pages, from 8 seconds to 676ms
An aviation asset-management company needed a website that could present a large catalog of aircraft, engines, and technical services without feeling slow. I built the frontend of 120+ pages from their Figma designs, many with 100+ images each. Load time dropped from about 8 seconds to 676ms, page weight from 12MB to about 800KB, and every Lighthouse category scores 95+.
Aviation asset-management company (name kept private)
The problem
A large catalog of aircraft, engines, and services, with image-heavy detail pages that had to stay fast and easy to browse.
What I built
The frontend of 120+ pages from Figma, with reusable templates for aircraft and engine pages and responsive layouts across the site.
The result
Load time down from about 8 seconds to 676ms. Page weight down from 12MB to about 800KB. 95+ in every Lighthouse category. No content removed.
Timeline
12 weeks
Budget
$16,000 (frontend from existing Figma designs)
The problem: a big technical catalog that has to stay fast
The company works across aircraft, engines, technical services, and asset programs. Each of those has detailed pages full of images and specifications. Industry visitors expect that detail, so cutting content to make pages lighter wasn't an option.
The site has more than 120 pages, and many carry 100 or more images. Before the rebuild, heavy pages took around 8 seconds to load and weighed about 12MB. That left two jobs: keep every page consistent, and make the heaviest ones load quickly.
Building aircraft and engine pages from reusable templates
Instead of building each asset page by hand, I built reusable templates for the recurring page types: asset families, individual aircraft and engines, and service pages. Each page fills the template with its own content, so the catalog looks and behaves the same everywhere and a new asset is quick to add.
The structure follows how a buyer actually browses: from the company, to a family of assets, to one specific aircraft or engine, to an enquiry.
01
Company and services
What the company does and who it works with.
02
Aircraft and engine families
Browse the catalog by type.
03
Asset detail page
Technical information for one aircraft or engine.
04
Enquire
A clear next step from every asset page.
Speeding up a content-heavy website without cutting content
The fix wasn't removing images or information. It was changing how they load, so the page shows what the visitor needs first and fetches the rest as they scroll. Load time dropped from about 8 seconds to 676ms, and page weight from 12MB to about 800KB, with every image still there. What I changed:
Image optimization and lazy loading
Less JavaScript on content-heavy pages
A better loading order for images and scripts
Faster rendering of long asset pages
Lighthouse testing during the build
Results
~8s → 676ms
page load time
12MB → ~800KB
page weight
95+
in every Lighthouse category
120+
pages, many with 100+ images
Key decisions
01
Optimize how content loads instead of removing it
The detail is what industry buyers come for. Loading it smarter kept every page complete and still fast.
Trade-off: More engineering effort than simply trimming pages.
02
Reusable templates for every recurring page type
A catalog this size only stays consistent if pages share the same structure.
Trade-off: More planning before the first page is built.
03
Treat asset pages as the core of the site
Aircraft and engine pages are where buyers decide whether to enquire, so they got the most care.
What the client said
“Our catalog is huge and full of images, and it still loads fast. Browsing it finally feels easy, and adding a new asset is simple.”
Load what the visitor sees first and delay the rest. That means properly sized images, lazy loading below the fold, less JavaScript on content pages, and templates that don't repeat heavy work. None of it requires removing content.
Do I have to remove content to make my website faster?
Rarely. Most slow sites are slow because of how content loads, not how much of it there is. Oversized images, scripts that block the page, and everything loading at once are the usual causes, and all of them can be fixed without deleting anything.
Can a developer build my website from an existing Figma design?
Yes, and it usually saves time, because the layout decisions are already made. A good developer will still flag where the design needs adjusting for mobile or for speed, and ask before changing anything.