Nigerian Flight Deck Travel and Business Reportage
CHIEF Executive Officer of Aero Contractors, Captain Ado Sanusi has said the Maintenance Repair Overhaul (MRO) part of the organization’s business is prepared to meet new challenges as its engineers are now trained on 737NGs, Embraers along with their certification for 737 Classics and the Dash 8 Q-300/400.
The Aero boss who was responding to questions during the announcement of a partnership with Ramco however said the investment into such diversification is massive and the organization is commercially-driven and will always gravitate towards the market.
Nigerianflightdeck can authoritatively report that there are some new airlines getting into the Nigerian market and existing carriers like Air Peace have made firm orders for new Embraer 195 aircraft and this may change the aviation landscape.
However, the Aero boss said sustainability is key and training alone does not cut that kind of diversification because it takes huge capital in tooling and equipment to make massive diversification of sorts and if the numbers do not support then it isn’t a worry venture.
“Recently, we have trained engineers for Embraer and Boeing Next Generation (NG) but diversification goes beyond that. What is important is not training engineers but to ensure the MRO is sustainable.
“We have the competence and manpower but whatever we do must be commercially driven, we must see the numbers, if the numbers say it’s alright we will go into it; we don’t want to spend money on tooling and other equipment for a non-existent market. Maintenance is driven by the market.”
The Aero boss said after meeting strict requirements of Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Aero MRO got its first 2C Check approval in September 2017 and has since then moved far.
The organization in the last two (2) years three months have performed C-Checks up to 6C (D-Check1) on Aero contractors’ and other customers’ aircraft as well as performed landing gear replacements on local and international customers including Azman Air, Max Air, Swift Air (Spain), Passion Air (Ghana), PTY (Indonesia) among others.
Captain Sanusi said, “Aero MRO has also performed uncountable number of engine replacement for numerous clients and have carried out, successfully, deactivation maintenance for many operators on their aircraft that have been grounded over five years with such aircraft flying to as far as Indonesia and Canada without problems.”
“With these achievements in just two years, local airlines no longer need to fly their aircraft out of Nigeria for heavy maintenance of their aircraft; thereby saving huge foreign currency that they would have expended on fuel when they just need to tow it to our hangar, or on overflight charges and allowances.
Captain Sanusi however said as the MRO services increases in scope and more third party equipment being brought to Aero hangar, the organization needs to expand to meet the growing need.
“There is need for an expansion, so Aero MRO can carry out maintenance on three or four aircraft simultaneously
