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Aircraft life extensions keep Pilatus busy around the clock

A plethora of heavy maintenance aviation work has been a boon for the Pilatus Centre Canada in Thunder Bay .
Pilatus-Centre_Cropped
The aircraft maintenance workforce at the Pilatus Centre in Thunder Bay has grown into a high volume 24-hour operation moving into a new shop in 2011.

A plethora of heavy maintenance aviation work has been a boon for the Pilatus Centre Canada in Thunder Bay.

Since moving into a state-of-the-art sales and service shop on the north side of Thunder Bay International Airport in 2011, the company has expanded its workforce and evolved into a high volume shop running 24/7.

“When we moved over here four years ago, we had six full-time maintenance guys on the floor,” said Steve Davey, executive vice-president and COO of the Pilatus Centre. Now they’ve staffed up to 55 employees, including 39 maintenance personnel.

He attributes the growth spurt to the number of aircraft overhauls for owners of the PC-12 coming from both sides of the border.

The Pilatus Centre has the exclusive Canadian sales for Pilatus aircraft, but also handles the mandatory service calls related to maintenance work for PC-12 life extensions in Canada and the U.S.

“We worked with the factory starting eight years ago to develop this life extension service bulletin and today we’re still the only factory dealer in the world that’s authorized to perform them,” said Davey.

The single-engine turbo prop is one of the more popular aircraft in North America and it’s the primary aircraft they sell.

The aircraft’s original design life limit is 20,000 hours, at which point it comes out of service for disassembly, inspection, and any necessary repairs being sent back into service for up to 50,000 hours.

Davey co-owns the Pilatus Centre with business partner Robert Arnone, along with a spinoff aircraft management and charter company, Private Air, which employs 70 with aircraft stationed in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia.

Davey was with the company at its start in 1997, working inside a small 5,000-foot hangar with enough room for two PC-12s and five employees on the airport’s south side. The office was an
attached trailer.

A graduate of Confederation College’s aircraft maintenance program and an alumnus of Austin Airways, Air Ontario and Kelner Airways (later Wasaya Airways), he worked alongside aviation legend Frank Kelner, who convinced Pilatus to establish a facility in Thunder Bay.

By 2001, they were in a 19,000-square-foot hangar with Wasaya before moving across the airport’s main runway to the north side and their own exclusive 11,000-square-foot facility in 2011.

“We shared the building with Wasaya and used them for contract labour, but it wasn’t the best for us,” said Davey,” we needed to focus purely on our customers.”

The facility now operates two shifts around the clock. The majority of their work is for private and corporate owners and medevac operations.

“We’re more accustomed to providing maintenance to a high-demand commercial operator that needs airplanes put back in service.”

Their regular clients include the Ontario Provincial Police and Ornge, the provincial air ambulance service.

“We do have a number of line maintenance customers that come up from the U.S. with their PC-12s and the main reason why they’re doing that – it’s not price driven – is because they’re getting their airplanes turned around quicker because we have a larger staff.”

A number of U.S.-owned aircraft are due for their life extension overhaul in Thunder Bay this year.

We just started our 14th life extension this past week,” said Davey during an interview in mid-March.

The centre also handles general aviation work.

“We’re the largest maintenance, repair and overhaul shop in Northern Ontario. We’re really the only retail maintenance provider of any size in Thunder Bay.”

They handle maintenance for Confederation College’s aviation program and service two large Basler freight aircraft for another one of their companies, Cargo
North.

There are future opportunities just over the horizon with the looming arrival of Pilatus’ new twin-engine light jet, the PC-24, to the North American market. It’s being branded as a versatile jet that’s the first of its type in the industry.

“It’s a game changer,” said Davey.

Unveiled by the Swiss aircraft manufacturer last summer, it can do double-duty as an executive jet and as a freight hauler with its side cargo door and ability to fly into small airstrips and land on grass runways.

Though reluctant to reveal sales numbers, Davey said the order book extends into 2020, which is good news for the dealership.

The PC-24 will be certified in Europe and the U.S. by 2017, with Canada following in 2018.

“The clients that we’re talking to are a mixture of corporate and special mission (like medevac).

Davey said it certainly augurs well for keeping the shop very busy.

“The PC-24 is going to be another big increase for us firstly in sales, but even with aircraft not coming until 2018, we’re already at the point where we’re preparing to train and tool up for it.”

Davey said they’re scoping for more opportunities to increase line maintenance and to develop more modifications for the aircraft, especially if it’s safety-related, to keep the shop busy all the time.

“We used to be very cyclic. We could predict when we would have slow periods in the shop. We haven’t seen that in about six years. It’s a good problem to have.

“We’re typically booking work in our shop two to three months in advance, Between me and my service manager, Shaun Appell, we’re aggressively out there trying to make sure we know what our shop will
look like.

“Between the existing customers we have in Canada, between the new deliveries, life extensions, and in what we’re seeing in interest out of the U.S., we’re able to keep
it full.”

For more information, pilatuscanada.com.