Article Posted on : - Feb 27, 2011

NEW DELHI (PTI): Leading Indian aviation company Air Works, which has been a major player in the maintenance of business jets, has said it is significantly developing its capabilities for heavy maintenance of small jets and other aircraft in the country.

Air Works is India's only Maintenance, Repairs and Overhaul (MRO) company which is certified by European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) to carry out maintenance of aircraft like turbo-prop ATR42/72s, Airbus A-320s and Boeing B-737s.

"We will now look towards significantly developing heavy maintenance work in general aviation as Air Works has the capability to undertake substantial heavy maintenance services," the company's new Vice President (Business and General Aviation) Nick White told PTI here.

He, however, did not reveal the amount of investment that would go into developing these new capabilities.

To questions on starting of heavy maintenance at the general aviation side, White said Air Works as a group has been offering heavy maintenance work to its customers on a regular basis.

General aviation primarily refers to corporate air travel, charters and private non-scheduled cargo services.

"On the commercial aviation side, we have done substantial amount of heavy maintenance work on ATRs and the A-320s. However, in the general aviation division, heavy maintenance although has been undertaken, it has been on an ad hoc basis," he said, adding that this activity would now be streamlined and developed further.

Air Works has major MRO facilities at Hosur near Bangalore, Mumbai, Trichy and several other locations.

White said substantial amount of maintenance work was taking place in the Mumbai hangar.

"At the moment, we have about 90 aircraft under our Annual Maintenance Contract which includes both simple and complex checks," he said.

Air Works is qualified to maintain over 50 types of aircraft and has over 100 customers across 12 maintenance locations.

The company is also an authorised service centre for almost all major helicopter and aircraft firms like AgustaWestland, Bell, Bombardier, Embraer, Garmin, Gulfstream, Honeywell, Rockwell Collins and Superjet International.

Air Works last year acquired UK-based Air Livery to become one of the world's largest providers of aircraft paint services.

It also has a joint venture with Scandinavian Avionics of Denmark to provide complete turnkey avionics solutions to both commercial and military customers in India.