Intra-European daily flights have decreased about 86% February 1 to April 1, according to RadarBox. But Poland’s Aviaprime Group has so far seen fewer than five cancellations at its three MROs, Linetech, Adria Tehnika and JAT Tehnika, according to a company spokesman. “The operating capacity of many of our customer airlines is much bigger than their in-house MRO can handle, even when fleet size is temporarily reduced,” he explains.

Still, for the last few weeks, Aviaprime has been in a damage-control mode. The primary requirement is to establish and maintain the supply chain, so checks started before the crisis can be finished. “It’s especially important, given the fact that we do a lot of end-of-lease and redelivery checks, so airlines are eager to wrap them up and finish the deals,” he says.

Second, the company says airlines need support to park aircraft. “Seeing the photos all over the world of aircraft stored on runways and taxiways, we cringe a bit. The costs of the workers being transported to perform short- and long-term storage maintenance are very big.” 

So Aviaprime is offering its customers space available at the airports that the Group operates, so man-hour and parking space costs can be minimized, while still securing grounded aircraft.

To help its airline customers, the group is also conducting a social-media campaign, urging passengers to postpone rather than cancel flights. And it wants to spark debate over national and EU bailouts for airlines.

For safety, Aviaprime is sending many employees to work at home, including employees that use public transportation, pregnant women and everyone with respiratory problems. He says the company banned travel by its workers before quarantines were even considered by the Polish government. 

Aviaprime is providing the usual protective equipment, gloves, hand sanitizers and disinfectants for both workers and facilities. It is also distributing immune-system boosters to workers.

Deep cleaning and decontamination of aircraft entering hangars is also done. And MRO staff work alone, meaning technical and airline representatives are not allowed to enter hangars. “Rather, we support them and answer their questions remotely,” he says.

So far, none of Aviaprime’s 2,000 workers has become ill. Partly, that may be due to location. By April 3 Poland had reported only two corona deaths per million people, way below the 13-230 deaths per million of its western neighbors.