Three industry professionals and former co-workers have co-founded DJL Aerospace, a Part 145 business jet maintenance provider based at the Norwich International Airport northeast of London.
DJL provides base and line maintenance, pre-purchase inspections, parts procurement, interior refurbishments, hangar parking and AOG (aircraft on ground) services.
With services provided by its engineering and logistics team, the company also performs aircraft parting or salvage on small-to-midsize business jet airframes throughout the UK and beyond. As the business grows, the founders plan to expand on its services as well.
The three founders, Leigh Saunders, Jamie Cooper and Dan Cater, worked together at a previous employer.
“We began talking and the idea came up,” Saunders says. “We started to look more deeply into it. Pretty resoundingly, we decided yes this is something we’d like to do between the three of us.”
They saw a demand and a market for their services and looked closely at what they can bring the industry and into what improvements they can make to the industry, he says.
They spent the next 12 months securing approvals, inventory and infrastructure. The company received CAA Part 145 approval in the UK in March 2023.
“What we want to do is come in fresh,” Saunders says. “We are independent, and we are a completely new startup. We see what we’d like to improve, and we see how we’d like to run the business ... and how we can improve that. We can work with our customers, and we can take their suggestions for how we might be able to improve as well to help us work better for them. It’s definitely a two-way conversation.”
The founders have a variety of skills that complement one another. Saunders, DJL’s accountable manager and supply chain specialist, has a supply chain background. Cater, the company’s maintenance manager, is a licensed engineer, while Cooper, deputy maintenance manager, has an engineering background, Saunders says.
The company has received approvals for Hawker 750/800XP/850XP/900XP, Embraer Phenom 300, Bombardier Challenger 601, Challenger 604/605/650, Bombardier Global 5000, Global Express/600, and Cessna Citation CJ1 and Citation CJ1 aircraft.
In the next year, as the company grows, they plan to start an apprenticeship program to bring in a new generation of engineers to help in their training.
It’s an important way to help others in the industry grow, Saunders says.
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