Swiss-based company begins work on new hangar for division installing VIP interiors on business jet airliners

Swiss business aviation services company Jet Aviation is to launch its own widebody airliner division and has started work on a new hangar in Basle.

The Basle business-jet aircraft maintenance, avionics and completions centre was established in 1967 and has, until recently, concentrated on aircraft up to the super-large and narrowbody airliner classes. The company is to create a new business division to focus on luxury interiors work and maintenance for aircraft such as Boeing 747s and 767s and the Airbus A330/A340 family, pitting it against Lufthansa Technik (LHT), says Rainer Albecker, senior vice- president of Jet Aviation Basle. "We did our first 747SP two years ago and since then we have taken on dedicated personnel, acquired the tools and obtained the required licences. The next step will be to create a separate division," says Albecker. Unlike LHT's XXL Class, Jet Aviation will not give its division a brand name, he adds.

The company has invested SFr3 million ($2.4 million) in the new venture and is set to start work on a new SFr10 million hangar extension large enough to accommodate a 747, says Albecker. The new division has been set a two-year target from the Jet Aviation board to make a return on the investment, he adds. "We did a study prior to reaching the conclusion that there is enough demand for a dedicated business unit, with only one competitor in Europe," he says.

LHT is the European leader in widebody airliner-class completion, with 10 747s completed, but Jet Aviation is understood to have secured orders for two 747SP completions from an undisclosed Middle Eastern state. The location, with in-house cabinetry, upholstery, glassfibre and paint shops, consists of six hangars totalling 13,500m2 (145,000ft2) and the order would leave Jet Aviation with little scope for additional work without the hangar extension. The company also has access to sufficient land at Basle-Mulhouse airport to construct a dedicated hangar for the A380, should a customer be found for the type.

JUSTIN WASTNAGE / BASLE

 

Source: Flight International