BEIJING—Year-old GCA Technik, eager to exploit Chinese aviation growth, is on the verge of expansion that will roughly double its workforce over the next three years. The former maintenance department of Hainan Airlines is planning, or is evaluating, a plethora of new and expanded product lines: maintenance for engines, components and business jets; training for technicians; painting of narrowbody aircraft; and more hangar space for heavy airframe maintenance.
Lufthansa Technik offers seat refurbishment and overhaul services as options alongside heavy checks at its maintenance facilities in Frankfurt, Berlin, Hamburg and Munich, as well as European affiliates in Brussels and Malta. Capabilities include the Airbus A320 family, A330 and A340 and Boeing 737-300/-500 and 747-200/-400. www.lufthansa-technik.com
Guangzhou Aircraft Maintenance & Engineering (Gameco) added Norbert Marx as general manager. Marx joins Gameco from Heli-One Inc. in Vancouver, and he formerly held leadership roles at Jet Aviation, Lufthansa Technik and Ameco Beijing. Gameco also named Wu RongXin deputy general manager. Wu joined Gameco in 2008, and has served as CFO for the last three years.
Aero Pneudraulics in Torrance, Calif., rebranded under the name AeroWorx and moved into larger facilities. It plans to begin manufacturing parts and perusing PMAs.
Belac shipped its 50,000th parts manufacturer approval high-pressure turbine blade in April to a customer in Europe. The joint venture of Chromalloy, Lufthansa and United Airlines began manufacturing and shipping the components in 2002.
At one point or another, we all find ourselves looking around the house for misplaced car keys or a business card with an important phone number on it. Usually, these things turn up, and the consequence of carelessness is no more than wasted time. But in a maintenance hangar, forgotten tools can transform into foreign object debris (FOD) that can cause serious damage if left behind in an aircraft.
By Kristin Majcher Every day airlines remind us of their commitment to enhancing the passenger experience. Some operators equip cabins with the newest inflight entertainment, mood lighting and lavatories. But the truth is that while some operators go all-out on newer aircraft, many have been reluctant to modify older fleets to offer the same level of comfort—until recently. As airlines rebuild midsize cabins like the Boeing 737 and A320 family after heavy checks, one trend is clear: Old seats must go.
PAS Technologies added Brian Meyer as general manager of its Miramar, Fla., facility. Meyer joins PAS Technologies from AAR Landing Gear Systems, where he most recently held the role of VP engineering. Airframes
SINGAPORE—Southeast Asian countries are developing aerospace parks to attract foreign investment, but poor planning means most lag behind market leader Singapore.
Dean Baldwin Painting plans to nearly double in size with a new location north of Indianapolis. It is investing around $10.5 million to transform a hangar complex at Grissom Aeroplex in Peru, Ind., into a state-of-the-art paint facility. When the project is complete, the site will have two widebody and two narrowbody bays. Operations should launch at the new site in December.
A finished aircraft is a good lesson in perspective. A passenger on a long-haul flight may see the Boeing 777 as one finished behemoth, seamlessly constructed as though it rolled off the assembly line in one piece. But an aircraft technician knows that the devil is in the details, working for hours to make sure every fastener, bolt and wire harness is secure after maintenance. Before an aircraft exists at the component level, all of the individual parts must be made from raw material.
Pratt & Whitney formally launched its PureSolution service program for the PurePower engine family. (For more information, see O&M, April 2011, pg. 66.)
Air Works Established: 1951 Number of Employees: 700 across 20 locations in the U.K., India and Southeast Asia Service footprint: Includes business and general aviation MRO, commercial aviation MRO, aircraft painting and avionics Maintenance Facilities: Authorized service facility for Agusta Westland, Bell Helicopter, Bombardier Aerospace, Gulfstream, Hawker Beechcraft, Embraer, Honeywell and Rockwell Collins. Qualified to maintain 50 aircraft types. Hangars at eight locations in the U.K. and India
Alaska Airlines launched a new inflight entertainment option in April: touchscreen, handheld digEplayer devices that let passengers access new-release movies, television programs, the National Football League network, ReelzChannel Hollywood programming and games. Customers also can pay a fee to use the device to connect to Alaska's Gogo inflight internet. Alaska debuted the system, which is lighter than its predecessor, in 2003. It is available on most flights longer than 3 hr.
MEMPHIS—The annual Avionics Maintenance Conference provides a forum for operators to air their equipment woes to the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), but April's gathering made for an especially heated environment. The topic of most contention was intellectual property, a concept that generates much confusion. Unhappy operators accused some avionics suppliers of keeping important maintenance information from them and citing intellectual property ownership as an excuse.
GE Aviation expanded its TRUEngine program to cover the CF6 and awarded the first CF6 TRUEngine designation to Nippon Cargo Airlines' fleet of 43 CF6-80C2 engines that power its Boeing 747 fleet. GE debuted the TRUEngine concept for the CFM56 engine three years ago. Now more than 6,000 engines operated by 62 customers—or 30% of the CFM56 engines in commercial service, GE says—have qualified for the designation.
Innotech-Execaire Aviation Group appointed Andrew P. Pearce regional director of aircraft sales for the U.K., Europe and the Middle East, based in London.
The IBS Group appointed Rajiv Shah CEO. He will lead IBS' business providing IT systems to the global air transportation industry. Rajiv's last assignment was with Wipro Technologies, where he was the chief executive of the securities and capital markets business unit and later the healthcare and services business unit.
Canard Aerospace amended STC to install a communication management unit and VHF 3 data radio on Boeing 737-600, -700, -700C, -800, -900 and -900ER series aircraft, STC ST01938CH
In the world of modern MRO, complexity layers upon complexity. All these convolutions have to be chronicled—every move, every time. Few industries on earth are so dependent on airtight documentation. To prove regulatory compliance, operators must unambiguously connect the documentary dots.
Delta TechOps received FAA Part 145 certification for its pre-merger Northwest Airlines hangars at Minneapolis-St. Paul in January, and Delta TechOps inducted its first customer aircraft, a North American Airlines' Boeing 757, there in April for an A check, says Tony Charaf, Delta TechOps' president. “Detroit (DTW) is next,” he says.
