Category: PRs

Aviation Technical Services (ATS) has acquired Texas Pneumatics Systems (TPS) Inc., a company that provides repair and overhaul services for commercial airlines predominantly for pneumatic and fuel related components and systems.

 

The purchase expands ATS’ breadth of capabilities in order to service new types of components that further support customer needs.

 

“The acquisition of Texas Pneumatics Systems is part of ATS’ strategy to respond to the needs and desires of our growing customer base,” said Brian Hirshman, ATS President.

 

“TPS has a long history of providing award-winning component repair work, and we are proud to put our experienced team to work for the ATS brand,” TPS President and CEO Bernie Rookey said. “TPS operates three businesses and facilities that all specialize in component repair services that are complementary to ATS’ service offerings and expertise.”

 

TPS Aerospace is the combined company of Texas Pneumatics Systems (TPS), Turbine Fuel Systems (TFS), and Aviation Industry Repair (AIR). The combined businesses meet all OEM requirements for servicing highly specialized pneumatic and fuel valves, starters, air cycle machines (ACMs), cooling turbines and pneumatic drive units (PDUs), submersible pumps, engine driven and boost pumps, APU controls and fuel controls. ATS already has a working relationship with TPS through its machine shop AIR.

BBA Aviation’s Ontic facility has received the Transport Canada Civil Aviation’s (TCCA) approval for its Cheltenham facility. This allows Ontic’s UK MRO division to provide maintenance solutions to its Canadian customers.

 

“The TCCA approval for our Cheltenham facility is important in serving our increasing customer base in Canada,” said President and Managing Director of Ontic, Gareth Hall.

 

The Cheltenham facility currently serves as a repair station and OEM for licensed and acquired products, including fuel measurement systems and emergency oxygen systems for a variety of platforms.

Lufthansa Bombardier Aviation Services (LBAS) and Vostok Technical Service (VTS) Jets have signed a cooperation agreement to offer maintenance services through the maintenance service center at Moscow Vnukovo-3 for Bombardier business jets in the Moscow area and throughout Russia/CIS.

 

Servics range from scheduled and occasional line maintenance, troubleshooting, and defect rectification to AOG support.

 

“Moscow is one of the business aviation hotspots and we are glad to establish a new milestone in our steadily growing network” said Christoph Meyerrose, Managing Director of LBAS. “Working together with VTS Jets was a natural choice because of their customer-oriented approach, their goal to meet the highest industry standards and their sophisticated logistic solutions.”

 

“With an annual traffic of more than 22,000 flight hours in 2015, Russia is an important market for Bombardier business jets in the EMEAC region, while Vnukovo is the number one airport with over 4,400 departures of Bombardier jets in the same period” stated Andrey Akopov, General Director of VTS Jets. “Our production facility is located in a brand new hangar in  Vnukovo-3, capable to carry out aircraft maintenance 24/7.”

HAECO Americas has begun construction of a fifth hanger at Piedmont Triad International (PTI) Airport, Greensboro, North Carolina, USA. The $60 million investment will add another 250,000 sq.ft. to its facilities and potentially add up to 500 new jobs when at full capacity. Hangar completion is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2017 and will be ready for its first customer aircraft in January 2018.

 

Over 176,000 sq.ft. will be hangar space, the largest within HAECO Americas’ facilities and almost twice the size of each of the other four hangars that the company currently operates at PTI Airport. The new hangar will be capable of holding eight narrowbody aircraft, or two widebody and two narrowbody aircraft simultaneously. The company partnered with Ghafari Associates on the initial design of the hangar.

 

Richard Kendall, CEO of HAECO Americas said the additional hanger space would help it “meet the anticipated demands for aviation and aerospace services in the region.” He added: “ HAECO Americas is preparing for the next generation of aircraft that have recently started operating and those in the pipeline that are yet to fly.”

 

Jim Sokol, President of MRO Services, HAECO Americas, said, “We will be adding to our outstanding workforce to meet growing industry demand…Our business is rooted in Greensboro beginning more than 25 years ago. We are delighted to grow our footprint in the Triad, as a significant player in the rising aerospace sector here.”

SR Technics has completed the cabin modifications for Edelweiss’ Airbus A320 fleet of six aircraft.

 

This involved reconfiguring the aircraft cabin layout and replacing seats, galleys and lavatories. The new layout allowed an additional seat row to be added to each plane, thus increasing Edelweiss’ per-flight capacity. In conjunction with the cabin modifications, the carrier also asked SR Technics to add a wireless Panasonic In-Flight Entertainment (IFE) system to all of the A320s.

 

Since several of the aircraft were due for heavy maintenance visits, SR Technics coordinated the work to coincide with these inspections in order to keep ground time to a minimum. The work on all six planes was done at SR Technics’ Center of Excellence in Zurich, and delivered on schedule.

 

“We work in close partnership with our customers to incorporate their special needs. Together with Edelweiss, we designed a cabin which is optimized for leisure flights with additional seat capacity and upgraded in-flight experience. Our engineering and maintenance teams worked in parallel to ensure that each aircraft was delivered on time,” said Michael Sattler, Head of Aircraft Services at SR Technics.

 

“We would like to thank SR Technics and the whole crew that worked on this project. They were essential to keeping downtimes to a minimum and getting the planes back into the air as scheduled,” explained Lorenz Thöni, Chief Technical Officer from Edelweiss.

Commsoft’s MRO IT system OASES has been chosen by Australian air charter and air freight firm Pionair to support the three BAe 146-200 regional airliners it will be using for its new airline freight operations.

 

Pionair will be Commsoft’s second active customer in Australia and this new contract represents the eighth deal won for OASES in 2016.

 

To allow for scalability, the system is structured in a modular format and for its new operations, Pionair has selected the Core, Airworthiness, Planning and Materials modules. Warranty and Line Maintenance modules may be added at a later stage.

 

The system will be hosted on Commsoft’s OASES Private Cloud service.

 

Nick Godwin, Commsoft Managing Director, said: “This contract win is excellent news for us and confirms yet again – for the eighth time this year – the technological, operational and commercial benefits that OASES can deliver. It also confirms that the OASES community is a truly global one and we’re looking forward to working with Pionair to ensure a speedy and successful implementation.”

MTU Maintenance has extended its existing cooperation with the LATAM Airlines Group (LATAM) by five years to 2024. The contract covers the maintenance, repair and overhaul of V2500 engines and is a tribute to the long-standing cooperation between the two companies.

 

LATAM is the largest airline group in Latin America and operates 126 A320s and A319s fitted with V2500 engines. It also has a fleet of A321 aircraft.

 

MTU Maintenance has performed close to 400 shop visits on the TAM Linhas Aereas (now part of LATAM) fleet since 1999. The extended contract expands on this cooperation and includes coverage of engines from the whole group of airlines’ fleet.

AAR has signed a long-term, multi-million-dollar contract to provide power-by-the-hour (PBH) component inventory management and repair services to Dubai-based flydubai. The agreement represents a significant expansion of AAR’s commercial footprint in the Middle East.

 

AAR will assume nose-to-tail management of components and repairs for flydubai’s Next-Generation Boeing 737-800 fleet, starting with 53 aircraft and increasing to 60. In November 2013, flydubai announced an order for 75 737 MAX 8s and 11 Next-Generation Boeing 737-800s valued at $8.8 billion at list prices in addition to purchase rights for 25 more 737 MAXs. In 2015, flydubai carried more than nine million passengers across its network of more than 85 destinations, becoming the second largest carrier, by passenger numbers, operating out of Dubai International.

 

“As flydubai continues on its robust growth trajectory, it must optimize its fleet’s performance while minimising costs and aircraft-on-ground time,” said Deepak Sharma, president, AAR international supply chain.

 

“Focusing our efforts on supporting customers in the Middle East region has paid off,” said AAR’s Rahul Shah, senior vice president, Strategic Growth and Business Development, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa. “We are pleased that flydubai has entrusted AAR to provide long-term component support of its Next-Generation Boeing 737-800 fleet.”

 

Mick Hill, SVP Engineering and Maintenance at flydubai said: “We continue to invest in technologies and partnerships that strengthen our commitment to maintain the highest levels of efficiency in our operations and cost management systems. We are excited about our component inventory management and repair services agreement with AAR which will help us reduce aircraft-on-ground time and consequently contribute to the bottom line.”

Commsoft has been chosen to supply its MRO IT system, OASES (Open Aviation Strategic Engineering System) to the French business class airline, La Compagnie.

 

The contract represents Commsoft’s first direct customer in France and OASES will support La Compagnie’s operations for its current fleet of two Boeing 757-200s.

 

Commsoft signed the deal licensing the Paris-based airline for five concurrent users, starting immediately. La Compagnie’s OASES licence covers a number of engineering and maintenance modules. Its OASES site is hosted on Commsoft’s private cloud and the chosen modules include core, airworthiness, planning, materials and line maintenance control.

 

Nick Godwin, Managing Director of Commsoft, commented: “We are delighted to be awarded this OASES contract by one of France’s most exciting up-and-coming business class airlines.”

 

Yann Poudoulec, EVP Technical Director, added: “We found OASES to be a very smart system with a lot of very practical functions that are not always present on legacy systems and the human interface is very intuitive. Thanks to the great support of the Commsoft team, the implementation and transfer of the fleet was done in less than two months after signature of the contract, all changes were audited and fully approved by the French CAA.”
OASES currently serves more than 100 aviation customers worldwide, ranging from national carriers and large third-party maintenance providers to small independent operators. It is a fully integrated MRO IT system that is crucial for maintaining effective aviation maintenance and engineering operations for airlines, CAMOs and associated organisations.

Piedmont Propulsion’s Charles M. Childress has received this year’s Charles Taylor Master Mechanic Award from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

 

The Charles Taylor Master Mechanic Award is named in honour of Charles Taylor, the first aviation mechanic in powered flight who served as the Wright brothers’ mechanic and is credited with designing and building the engine for their first successful aircraft.

 

The Charles Taylor “Master Mechanic” Award recognises the lifetime accomplishments of senior mechanics. Taylor Mr. Childress’s extraordinary career spans 50 years, starting with service in the United States Air Force.  Since January 1970, he has been a dedicated team member with Piedmont Propulsion Systems and predecessor firms in Winston-Salem, NC.  Childress performed maintenance on Dowty, Hamilton Sundstrand, Hartzell and McCauley propellers as a technician, crew chief, quality inspector and manager.

 

Sammy Oakley, General Manager of PPS said that Childress “has been an integral part of the success of Piedmont Propulsion Systems and his leadership has resulted in the training of generations of mechanics.  We are truly proud that Charles is part of our organisation.”  The Ceremony was held at Piedmont Propulsion Systems’ headquarters facility that is also named in his honour.