Category: PRs

Construction Begins on New Training Center at MTU Maintenance Zhuhai

At MTU Maintenance Zhuhai, the joint venture partners MTU Aero Engines and China Southern Airline Company held a groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of a new training center. Beginning in early 2023, the center will train 50 to 100 engine mechanics for the company every year.

“With a training center, MTU Maintenance Zhuhai will get on a fast lane to be a company with abundant talents and high-quality development,” said Wu Rongxin, chief engineer of China Southern Airlines and general manager of Engineering Technology, China Southern.

“Building the training center is part of our long-term growth strategy at the Zhuhai site,” said Michael Schreyögg, Chief Program Officer of MTU Aero Engines. “At MTU, we believe in the future of the aviation industry, and in the growth and strength of the market for engines for short and medium-range aircraft in Asia. That is why we are so committed to expanding our network.”

In September 2021, MTU Maintenance Zhuhai began building a new site in Jinwan for engine disassembly, assembly and testing. The new plant will initially have capacity for 260 maintenance procedures, focusing on Pratt & Whitney PW1100G-JM and V2500 engines, and will go into operation in 2024. The new training center will serve both the existing plant in Zhuhai and the new site in Jinwan.

“This center is an investment in our most important capital – our employees,” adds Jaap Beijer, president and CEO of MTU Maintenance Zhuhai. “We will be able to implement our ambitious plans for personnel requirements and guarantee the high-quality training that is demanded of us.”

The main technical achievement of the new training center will be successfully reducing turnaround times (TAT) for engine maintenance by implementing the highest quality standards. The dual training system used in Germany – a combination of theoretical and practical training – will be applied here.

MTU Maintenance Zhuhai currently already offers its employees a wide range of further education options. In addition, the company invests in professional development for students at the leading universities in China.

PAG expands Avionics and Manufacturing/Sub-Assembly/DER Capabilities

Atlanta-based Precision Aviation Group, Inc. (PAG) recently announced the acquisition of Velocity Aerospace.

manufacturing. Velocity is headquartered in Frisco, TX, and operates three FAA Repair Stations in Burbank and Van Nuys, California and Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.  

“Velocity is a great fit for PAG, by expanding our avionics and DER repair portfolio, as well as entering into the manufacturing space.  They have a long history of delivering exceptional customer service, industry leading products and cost-effective repair solutions. With the Burbank and Van Nuys facilities added to our existing operations in Long Beach and Camarillo, as well as the new facility in Ft. Lauderdale, we now have ‘Next Generation Avionics MRO Centers of Excellence’ in Southern California and South Florida that allows us to better serve our customers.  These locations employ 140 personnel, perform over 25,000 annual repairs, and operate out of over 110,000 square feet of MRO facilities. I am excited about the collaboration of these facilities in terms of leveraging our avionics expertise, infrastructure, and our focus on next generation avionics repair solutions,” said David Mast, president & CEO of PAG.

Dan McDonald, Vice President and GM of Velocity stated, “It’s a very exciting time to join PAG as they continue to execute their strategic growth plans which include significant investments in Velocity’s product and service offerings, process updates, and new repair capabilities. We have worked closely with PAG’s management team throughout the acquisition process and believe this partnership will provide significant benefits to our customers, vendors, and employees.”

NBAA Names Recipients of Maintenance Scholarships 2021

The National Business Aviation Association’s (NBAA’s) Maintenance Committee has announced the recipients of 2021 Maintenance AMT Scholarships, who are being recognized now due to pandemic-related scheduling challenges.

With the Maintenance AMT awards in hand, these award recipients will be able to attend model-specific courses at training centers offering aircraft, engine and avionics instruction. Dedicated to the promotion of technical education and training for maintenance personnel in the business aviation industry, the program is open to current and aspiring A&P mechanics and military personnel who are making the transition to a civilian career in business aviation.

More than $400,000 in awards was presented to the recipients.

The 2021 Maintenance AMT recipients and their courses are:

  • Nathan Nothelle – CAE –  Challenger 300/350 Series Maintenance Initial Course
  • Chris Rumsey – Flight Safety– Caravan Maintenance Initial Training Program
  • Joshua Rosado – Gulfstream – Gulfstream G500/G600 Maintenance Initial
  • Jared Vigar – FlightSafety International – Gulfstream Maintenance Initial
  • Joshua DeGuire – Global Jet Services – Any two-week initial course from catalog includes up to $2,500 toward travel  (ex. Gulfstream, Bombardier, Textron, Falcon Maintenance Initial)
  • JaDarius Satterfield – Rolls Royce – One Engine Course for Rolls-Royce Engines currently in production
  • Brooklyn Swenson – Textron Aviation – King Air 250 Maintenance Initial Training
  • Sonish Joseph – Dassault Falcon Jet – Falcon 900EX EASy, 2000EX EASy, or Falcon 7X Maintenance Initial
  • Michael Scala – Rolls-Royce –  One engine course for Rolls-Royce engines currently in production
  • Michael Pelletier – Satcom Direct – One Aero IT Certification Course
  • Alexis Daley – Dassault Falcon Jet – Falcon 900EX EASy, 2000EX EASy, or Falcon 7X/8X Maintenance Initial
  • Trevvor Kotrba – CAE – Lear 75 Avionics Course
  • Collin Sharp – FlightSafety International – Falcon Maintenance Initial Training Program
  • Keenan Doornink – Williams International – FJ Series Engine Line Maintenance
  • Genesis Colon Laguna – Garmin International – G3/5000 Intro
  • Laci McArter – NBAA – Registration for the 2022 NBAA Maintenance Conference in San Antonio, TX
  • Caleb Gibson – FlightSafety – PT6 Turboprop Engine Line Maintenance
  • Justin Cintron – Collins Aerospace –  Pro Line Fusion Gulfstream G-280 Avionics Course
  • Reece Bhave – Collins Aerospace – Pro Line Fusion Global 5000/6000 Avionics Course
  • Alexander Anderson – Textron Aviation – Citation CJ3/CJ3+ Series Maintenance Initial Training
  • Juan Pierre Van Der Merwe – USC – Aviation Safety and Security Program
  • Nicholas Mosesso – Gogo – The Basic Wiring and Avionics Installation Course
  • Fernando Cifuentes – Collins Aerospace –  Pro Line Fusion Embraer L500 Avionics Course
  • Christian Pavelka – Abaris –  M1-R1 Advanced Composite Structures: Fabrication and Damage Repair
  • Stephen Clifford –Williams International – FJ Series Engine Line Maintenance
  • Joshua Cooper – Abaris –  M1-R1 Advanced Composite Structures: Fabrication and Damage Repair
  • Samantha Fank – Abaris –  M1-R1 Advanced Composite Structures: Fabrication and Damage Repair
  • Maria Sackrider – Abaris –  M1-R1 Advanced Composite Structures: Fabrication and Damage Repair
  • Amir Morsi – Williams International – FJ Series Engine Line Maintenance
  • Tyler Hupp – Williams International – FJ Series Engine Line Maintenance

NBAA thanks the following organizations for making the Maintenance AMT program possible: Abaris Training Resources, CAE Training, Dassault Falcon Jet, FlightSafety International, Garmin Ltd., Global Jet Services, Inc., Gogo Business Aviation, Gulfstream Aerospace Corp., Collins Aerospace, Rolls-Royce, Inc., Satcom Direct, NBAA, Textron Aviation, USC Viterbi School of Engineering and Williams International.

Applications for the 2022 Maintenance AMT awards will be available later this year. For more information on this program, visit the AMT Maintenance web page.

In addition to the scholarship program offered by the Maintenance Committee, NBAA Charities offers a number of other scholarships and programs to promote professional development and business aviation careers. For more information, contact Molly Hitch at NBAA (202) 783-9353, or to view application forms, visit www.nbaa.org/scholarships.

Texas Aerospace Technologies Appoints Opheim as Director, Sales USA/Canada

TEXAS AEROSPACE TECHNOLOGIES, a subsidiary of Texas Aerospace Services, announced that Mike Opheim has been appointed director, sales USA/Canada. Opheim joins Texas Aerospace Technologies with 30+ years’ experience in the aviation & avionics community.  Having held sales and marketing positions with Rockwell Collins, Marathon Battery, Satcom Direct, L3 and DAC International, the company says Opheim brings a tremendous amount of experience and expertise to the Texas Aerospace Technologies team.  His responsibilities will include sales and marketing for the USA and Canadian markets as well as other business development and program management duties.

“We are excited to have Mike on board the Texas Aerospace Technologies team. His extensive knowledge of distribution, avionics, and STC development with the USA/Canada dealer base brings a tremendous value to our company, customers and OEM partners.” said Brad Sutphin, vice president of Texas Aerospace Technologies.

IBAC Supports Women in Corporate Aviation with IS-BAO and IS-BAH Workshop Scholarships

The International Business Aviation Council (IBAC) announced the offering of two scholarships for the International Standard for Business Aircraft Operators (IS-BAO) and International Standard for Business Aircraft Handling (IS-BAH) workshops. Submissions for applications are being accepted at the Women in Corporate Aviation (WCA) website with a membership login, and ends 25 March 2022.

IBAC Auditor Accreditation Manager, A&P technician, and WCA advocate Yvonne Marinus is leading the scholarship process for IBAC. “I am excited to work with WCA to select and recognize the deserving recipients of these workshop scholarships. Additional knowledge and insight of Safety Management Systems (SMS) and the independent auditing process can be valuable to people in our industry and is an excellent opportunity to enhance their career.” said Yvonne.

The IBAC scholarships include one for IS-BAH Fundamentals and Auditing workshops, and one for IS-BAO Fundamentals and Auditing workshops. These safety standard programmes are internationally recognized, and the workshops are an integral part of an organization becoming IS-BAO or IS-BAH registered. The Fundamentals course covers implementation with a practical approach to managing an SMS, based on ICAO principles. The Auditor course includes essential training in SMS performance validation.

“All of us at IBAC are proud to support Women in Corporate Aviation and look forward to hosting the scholarship recipients,” commented IBAC Director General, Kurt Edwards.  “It is crucial to the future of our workforce that we encourage and support the talented women working in this industry today and we thank the volunteers at WCA for all they do to help make that happen.”  

Skystream Partners with OASES


Skystream Airlines, an EU-based airline with its headquarters in Tallinn, Estonia is to deploy OASES as its airworthiness and maintenance solution.

The company specializes in air cargo and operates a fleet of Saab 340 cargo aircraft. Skystream have opted for a number of OASES modules including CAMO, Line Maintenance and Materials to ensure their aircraft are always airworthy to provide the best possible air cargo service. 

The use of OASES will enable Skystream to future-proof its business growth while offering a unified, configurable platform for driving and monitoring the airline’s MRO operations with a focus on best practice and compliance procedures. 
Implementing OASES brings many important advantages for Skystream including:

  • Airworthiness processes which can be planned, executed, accelerated, logged, and automatically captured for compliance monitoring and reporting. 
  • Line maintenance, with the integration of data feeds from EFB, ETL, e-enabled aircraft and electronic operations systems, enabling the control of short-term maintenance planning, aircraft defects and the materials required to support rectification.
  • Material management with the improved cost-effectiveness of stock control and the assurance of availability when required.

Oliver Loorits, Airworthiness manager Skystream Airlines said, “We are very pleased to partner with OASES, one of the most dedicated and outstanding CAMO/MRO software companies in the aviation industry.” adding, “With OASES advanced software and support from their professional services team, Skystream Airlines will have a real opportunity to achieve our goal of extensive growth in 2022 and beyond.”

“We are excited to partner with Skystream on what we hope will be a long and successful journey with them,” said Paul Lynch, CEO, managing director of OASES. “We’re confident the implementation of the OASES will help bring them major benefits through operational efficiencies, reduced maintenance, simplified processes and improved productivity. Being a Cloud solution, OASES will seamlessly scale to meet Skystream’s ambitions.”

Ryanair Opens New Aircraft Maintenance Facility In Seville

Ryanair opened its newly expanded maintenance facility at Seville Airport in December, delivering further investment in the region and creating 250 high-skilled jobs, including licensed engineers, mechanics and support staff – bringing Ryanair’s local headcount to 500 by 2023.

Ryanair has invested over €30 million in this state-of-art 5-bay maintenance facility (20,000m2) since it first opened in 2019. The Seville Line Maintenance station is one of the most environmentally friendly facilities in the world and will maintain a large portion of Ryanair’s fleet of aircraft, which will grow to 600 aircraft by 2026.

With over 2,500 engineers across Europe, Ryanair Line Maintenance Engineering, is responsible for all aircraft maintenance activities, ensuring that Ryanair aircraft take our customers to their destination, safely and on time.

Ryanair has carried over 22 million customers to/from Seville since its operations began in 2003 and has played a vital role in Seville and Andalucía’s traffic and tourism recovery post COVID-19. Ryanair has also announced its full 2022 schedule from/to the Seville-San Pablo airport, delivering 53 routes, including seven new summer routes to/from Agadir, Billund, Frankfurt, Oujda, Tenerife, Tétouan, Turin, further supporting the recovery of the tourism industry and enhancing the region’s connectivity.

“As the largest airline in Spain, Ryanair is delighted to open its expanded maintenance centre in Seville, which brings its total investment to €30m and 500 jobs, underlining Ryanair’s ongoing commitment to Spain and the Andalucía region,” Ryanair’s Eddie Wilson said. “This state-of-the-art facility is a world class environmentally friendly facility as Ryanair continue to lower CO2 emissions as Europe’s greenest airline Ryanair creates opportunities for highly skilled engineering jobs, with our industry leading rosters and the youngest fleet in Europe. Seville is an ideal location with endless opportunities to attract, train and employ local talent to support this facility. With this state-of-art facility and 4 based aircraft for S22 delivering 53 routes to 13 countries, Ryanair is supporting and positioning Seville for a strong recovery, and we look forward to further growing local tourism, traffic and jobs.”

Low-Cost Carriers Spirit and Frontier to Merge

Spirit and Frontier Airlines announced a plan to merge which will spawn the fifth largest airline in the U. S.  The deal is valued at $6.6 billion and the two companies have yet to say if they will take one brand or the other as the end livery under which they will operate.

With the merger, the new company would operate more than 1,000 flight a day and would fall behind American, Delta, United and Southwest becoming larger than JetBlue and Alaska Air.

 “The stronger financial profile of the combined company will empower it to accelerate investment in innovation and growth and compete even more aggressively, especially against the dominant ‘Big Four’ airlines, among others,” said a press release sent out the morning of the announcement.

William A. Franke, the Chair of Frontier’s Board of Directors and the managing partner of Indigo Partners, Frontier’s majority shareholder, noted that Indigo has a long history with both Spirit and Frontier, and is proud to partner with them in creating a disruptive airline. “We worked jointly with the Board of Directors and senior management team across both carriers to arrive at a combination of two complementary businesses that together will create America’s most competitive ultra-low fare airline for the benefit of consumers.”

“We are thrilled to join forces with Frontier to further democratize air travel,” said Ted Christie, President and CEO of Spirit. “This transaction is centered around creating an aggressive ultra-low fare competitor to serve our Guests even better, expand career opportunities for our Team Members and increase competitive pressure, resulting in more consumer-friendly fares for the flying public. We look forward to uniting our talented teams to shake up the airline industry while also continuing our commitment to excellent Guest service.”

“This combination is all about growth, opportunities and creating value for everyone – from our Guests to our Team Members to the flying public at large,” said Mac Gardner, Chairman of the Board of Spirit. “We’re a perfect fit – our businesses share similar values, including our longstanding commitment to affordable travel. At the same time, we have complementary footprints and fleets, including one of the youngest and greenest fleets worldwide. Together, we will be even more competitive for our Guests and our Team Members, and we are confident we can deliver on the benefits of this combination to consumers.”

“Together, Frontier and Spirit will be America’s Greenest Airline and deliver more ultra-low fares to more people in more places,”said Barry Biffle, President and CEO of Frontier. “I couldn’t be more excited for our team members, customers, partners, the communities we serve and our shareholders.”

Spirit and Frontier reported losses during pandemic, as has most of the U. S. airline industry. There may be some regulatory hurdles to jump through before the merger will be approved by federal antitrust regulators. The Biden administration recently blocked an agreement between American and JetBlue that was not a full merger.

Wencor Announces Strategic Channel Partnership with Novaria 

Novaria has selected Wencor as a preferred strategic aftermarket channel partner supporting products for the commercial and defense markets. The agreement includes precision component and specialty hardware products supporting airframe and engine platforms which will boost Wencor’s material solution offerings to the aerospace and defense market segment customers. 

“We are excited to partner with Novaria and their market leading products. Their diverse product and engineering capabilities, combined with our extensive portfolio and value added services will enhance opportunities to the commercial and defense markets. We pride ourselves on being able to provide innovative solutions to our customers that enable reliability, material availability and cost efficiencies.” said Hunter Mitchem, Wencor president of distribution. 

“With Wencor’s proven track record of servicing commercial aftermarket customers, this is an ideal solution for channeling Novaria’s rapidly growing product offering into the global aftermarket,” Phillip Alaniz, EVP at Novaria Group, noted. “This partnership allows us to efficiently service the aftermarket while boosting Novaria’s focus on engineering and manufacturing technology solutions.”

First Class Air Holdings Partners with Aviation Inflatables and Survival Products

O2 Investment Partners announced that through First Class Air Holdings it has made an investment in and partnered with Aviation Inflatables and Survival Products to support its strategic growth plan.

“Aviation Inflatables and Survival Products are known across the aviation industry as premier providers of emergency equipment products and services. We are excited to have German and his team join First Class Air Holdings and are committed to providing best-in-class customer service,” said Isac Roths, CEO of First Class Air Holdings. “We believe there are significant revenue synergies, with an opportunity to bring superior value and innovative solutions to a broad set of cargo freighter and commercial aviation customers.”

Aviation Inflatables is an independent evacuation slide, raft, and life vest MRO facility in the Americas serving the aerospace industry. Aviation Inflatables is a licensed FAA and EASA repair station, aftermarket distributor, and PMA licensee/manufacturer with an onsite DER. Survival Products is the leading manufacturer of life rafts and related products for general and corporate aviation as well as the marine industry. Survival Products manufactures a series of 4-12 person FAA-approved, TSO life rafts with distributors and certified service/repairs stations worldwide.

German Alvarez, founder and president of Aviation Inflatables and Survival Products, commented, “First Class Air Holdings and O2 are a great fit for our organization and will help us reach our full growth potential. This partnership will allow us to grow our geographic presence, make strategic investments in our organization, and enhance our capabilities for customers. Isac and I share the same vision for the future and we are excited to partner together.”

Charlie Miller of O2 Investment Partners added, “We are honored to welcome the Aviation Inflatables and Survival Products team to First Class Air Holdings. The combination of Aviation Inflatables, Survival Products, and First Class Air Holdings is highly complementary, adding proprietary MRO services, exceptional engineering capabilities, and new customer relationships to the platform. German has built a great team and terrific business and we look forward to supporting his strategic growth plans.”