Amac Aerospace Switzerland announced here at EBACE its acquisition of JCB Aero SAS, concluded in April, expanding the reach and capabilities of the Basel-based company’s completions, maintenance, engineering and production services. JCB Aero, of Auch, France, produces interior elements including curved honeycomb panels and composite structures, and also provides engineering and completion services.
Citing its “experienced and highly skilled craftsmen,” Kadri Muhiddin, Amac’s group executive chairman and CEO, said the acquisition “makes the perfect complement to Amac Aerospace’s operations and core competencies.” Located on a private airport, JCB, with more than 120 employees, has a 54,000-sq-ft (5,000-sq-m) hangar and 66,000 sq ft (6,127 sq m) of office space. JCB will continue operating under its own name for the present.
Amac (Booth H115) also announced an expansion of its footprint in Turkey, where its Istanbul facility is a Dassault Falcon Authorized Service Center, with plans to establish a base at Milas Bodrun Airport in southwest Turkey, where it recently acquired a parcel of land from the Turkish Airport Authorities. Amac will build a hangar on the property, slated for completion in November, that can accommodate two narrowbody aircraft simultaneously.
Fourth Hangar
Since last year’s EBACE, Amac has celebrated a host of firsts, which it highlighted during a media day at its EuroAirport Basel headquarters facility last week. The company opened its fourth hangar, dedicated to maintenance, in October 2015. The 78,000-sq-ft. (7,280-sq-m) hangar can accommodate one widebody and two narrowbody executive jets simultaneously. During a tour of Amac’s facilities, a 747-8i the company redelivered last May–the first head-of-state completion on an -8i, according to Amac (performed for an undisclosed Middle Eastern customer)–was undergoing its first annual inspection in the new hangar.
Amac’s business model calls for providing both completions and maintenance, to help weather boom and bust cycles. “Our aim is to keep a 50-50 balance [between completions and maintenance], but it’s never the case. It changes. There is always movement in the market,” said Muhiddin. “The completions market has taken a step down, that’s for sure–Boeing is not selling, Airbus is not selling, in comparison with six or seven years ago. But aircraft love maintenance.”
Muhiddin noted that the widebody executive aircraft market is dominated by government customers, which are more impervious to economic gyrations than private customers, though not immune. “We were comfortable to last year,” when oil prices began to slide, he said, affecting even some governments.
“If you don’t have a new airplane, the next step is refurbishment - if you don’t want to spend $100 million, you spend $20 million,” Muhaddin said. “If there’s no refurbishment, then there’s maintenance. Like it or not, the aircraft has to come in for inspection.”
Muhaddin pronounced Amac “in excellent shape,” “very profitable,” and debt-free. Annual turnover is now more than $250 million, he said. The company has invested more than $200 million on its Basel facilities, and the value of the company, based on a recent unsolicited purchase offer, is $1.5 billion, according to Muhiddin. Twenty-to-25 aircraft are typically at the fully secure facility at any one time.
Amac sees widebody maintenance as a growing opportunity, as MROs that provide maintenance for airlines’ widebodies don’t have the training or capability for removal and reinstallation of executive-configured airliner interiors.
In the refurbishment arena, the company is now targeting Bombardier’s Global Express; Muhiddin noted many are in mid-life and will be undergoing 10-year inspections and C checks, an ideal time for interior upgrades, which can be performed in parallel with the required inspections.
Amac (the acronym stands for “Aircraft Modifications And Completions,” as well as “Aircraft Management And Charter”, says the company) opened its first hangar in 2008. With the completion of Hangar 4, its hangar space totals more than 300,000 sq ft (28,280 sq m) and secure apron area exceeds 480,000 sq ft (44,610 sq m). Two of the hangars can house two widebody and a narrowbody airframes simultaneously.
The hangars are supported by massive wooden braces. When the first hangar was under construction, the price of steel, typically used for roof supports, had spiked due to demand in China. “Somebody suggested wood–we said that won’t work, but after tests, we found wood can resist a fire better than the buckling point of steel,” said Muhiddin. “The steel price came down, but we decided to stick with wood.”
The company’s hangars sit side-by-side, with workshops for upholstery, woodwork, avionics, engineering, and other services in offices along the perimeter within each hangar. Amac’s in-house capabilities handle almost every element of its interiors and refurbishments, eliminating scheduling, reliability and quality issues than can arise when relying on third party providers.
But unlike the majority of completers and refurbishers, Amac has no interior design department where clients can see materials or select cabin configurations and appointments. Amac said most clients have their own designers who’ve designed homes, yacht interiors and other projects for owners, and are familiar with their tastes and requirements. Amac’s designers work with the owners’ representatives to translate those design requirements to an aircraft interior.
More than 630 work at the Basel facility, and the company plans to add an additional 100 over the next year. Its more than 100 engineers handle all STCs for its projects. The company is currently installing a Honeywell JetWave Ka-Band system on a BBJ3, and is developing an STC for the fuselage-mounted antenna, its fourth STC for a Ka-Band antenna installation. Amac is also developing Ka-Band installations for Boeing B777s, BBJs and Airbus A340s, and offers its STCs to aftermarket service providers.
Amac also performed five C-checks on B777s over the past year, and recently signed heavy-base-maintenance contracts for a B777 and a BBJ.
Amac supplements its completions/refurbishment and maintenance with charter and aircraft management/sales services; the company has 15 narrowbody and widebody executive airliners under management.
Amac is also the distributor for the Pilatus PC-12 single-engine turboprop in Turkey and the Middle East, and during the past year has sold its first three in the region – two to a buyer in the UAE, and one in Turkey. Muhiddin said it has taken time to educate customers in the region of the benefits of the PC-12. “In the Middle East, they see one engine, they won’t come near it,” he said, but emphasized his belief in the platform. Amac will also represent the in-development Pilatus PC-24 twinjet, which is making its debut public appearance this year at EBACE.
