Completion, refurbishment, and MRO provider Flying Colours lands at NBAA 2018 (Booth 1735) amid significant expansions at its Peterborough, Ontario headquarters and St. Louis, Missouri facilities, which will almost double the Canadian company’s North American footprint to some 320,000 sq ft from the current 180,000 sq ft.
The expansions are “driven by long-term need for increased capacity, as customer demand reflects renewed growth in the business aviation sector,” said Eric Gillespie, executive v-p of sales and marketing. “The latest aircraft models require high-quality interior monuments for completions,” he explained, “while the active preowned market has driven a rise in refurbishment demand, and the frequency of heavy maintenance checks has grown as more models become due.”
Along with its three hangars for maintenance, completions, and refurbishment, the 22,000-sq-ft fourth hangar expansion at Spirit of St. Louis Airport (KSUS) in Chesterfield brings its footprint to almost 100,000 sq ft and adds 70 employees for a total of 180 on the payroll, and the “hiring” sign is out.
Among the projects seen in the hangars during a recent tour, a Falcon 900 was undergoing a heavy maintenance check with all the fairings off, stripped bare inside. Customers often want interior enhancements and/or avionics upgrades performed in conjunction with such maintenance work, but “If a client puts down an airplane for three or four months, they want it all done,” said Kevin Kliethermes, director of sales. “If you couldn’t do the avionics upgrade, you’re not going to get the heavy check [contract].”
A Bombardier specialist, on the completion side Flying Colours often takes on interiors projects on behalf of OEMs for customers with more unusual interiors requests or requirements.
“Typically we will do the things the OEM shies away from,” said Dave Stewart, v-p of operations and general manager in St. Louis. “‘Oh, the guy wants a shower in it?’ That’s our niche.”
Flying Colours’s in-house 30-strong engineering team uses 3D modeling to create and review designs with customers, and for ensuring fit for monuments and other to-be-installed interior components before the aircraft even arrives for a project.
MRO and interiors work goes on 24/7. The manufacturing side of the house runs two shifts per day and a full weekend shift.
In the manufacturing building, which began operations in January, the layout of the shops and production flow is based on lean manufacturing techniques and primarily supports designing, building, and finishing woodwork monuments for large-cabin jets. Stewart, a former Toyota production executive, is a zealous advocate for the continuous improvement process. Combined with the additional workshop space, the new facility is expected to increase productivity 600 percent during its first year.
Its capabilities mirror those in the Peterborough headquarters but have some newly incorporated equipment. In the CNC room, where materials start their transformation into business jet interiors, a new edge-fill machine works in concert with the computer-controlled cutting machine for working on composite materials; it fills the voids left by the CNC cuts, removing a time-consuming, tedious, and less precise manual labor step from the process.
Further expansion at SUS is under way. Flying Colours announced in September it will take over a fifth hangar at the airport, set for inauguration in December. The 30,000-sq-ft space is large enough to handle up to three parallel large-cabin jet maintenance, avionics-upgrade, and interior projects simultaneously. A second floor will host an additional 18,000 sq ft of customer lounges, office space, and storage.
Meanwhile, in Peterborough, groundbreaking on the new 100,000-sq-ft fourth hangar is expected in the fourth quarter. The purpose-built hangar will be divided into three distinct zones. The first is a new 40,000-sq-ft, climate-controlled, state-of-the-art paint shop, large enough to accommodate business jets up to the Global 7500, Boeing Business Jet, or Airbus A220 (formerly the Bombardier C Series) airframes. The new booth will supplement the two existing dedicated paint shops.
A second 40,000-sq-ft area has been designed for simultaneous heavy maintenance and/or interiors work on up to four Global 6000-size aircraft.
Third, two higher levels will be used for new customer offices, a second dedicated design center, and general office and storage space, with total space of more than 20,000 sq ft. Flying Colours expects the Peterborough hangar to open in mid-2019.
Flying Colours is also expanding its third facility, in Singapore, which provides refurbishment services and is co-located in the Bombardier Singapore Service Centre at Seletar Airport.
