Aviation firm cleared for take-off after Nauru deal

A small aviation company has vowed to stem the loss of aircraft engineering jobs in Australia after sealing a maintenance contract with Nauru Airlines.

ASC will service the five 737s operated by the flag carrier of the Pacific Island nation from a new aircraft service hangar at Brisbane Airport.

Nauru Airlines chief executive Geoff Bowmaker said the company’s aircraft had previously been maintained by Qantas and Toll but with an expanded fleet, including a freighter aircraft, a dedicated facility was needed.

The airline carries more than 15,000 passengers each year on weekly flights from Brisbane to Nauru, more than the island’s population of 10,000. It also has regular “island hops” between Nauru, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati and the Federated States of Micronesia.

“Over the last two years, we have gone from two aircraft to five, so we thought that was the tipping point to having a dedicated maintenance company,” Bowmaker said.

ASC director Richard Perceval said the agreement with Nauru would allow more local engineers to be employed in Brisbane after years of outsourcing overseas by the big carriers.

In 2014, Qantas sent heavy maintenance on its remaining Boeing 747 jets offshore after its operation at Victoria’s Avalon Airport shut.

Perceval said ASC would employ more than 50 people at Brisbane Airport and the company’s Caboolture facility.

Perceval and fellow director Neil O’Callaghan, both aircraft engineers, founded the company in 2008 to service defence and commercial planes.

The company, which also offers labour hire and quick-response maintenance, now has a client base including Qantas, Airbus Defence and Space, and Northrop Grumman.

The company can carry out everything from the simplest repair job to more rigorous maintenance.

Perceval declined to provide financial details of the contract but said it involved 250,000 man hours each year.

“We want to do the maintenance in Brisbane using local labour,” he said. “A lot of work has gone offshore in the past and we want to bring some of it back.”

He said the company also hoped to gain maintenance work from other Pacific airlines that operated out of Brisbane Airport.

 

“At the moment, Brisbane engineers are sent overseas for maintenance jobs for these airlines.”

 

Nauru Airlines’ Bowmaker said the Government-owned airline would look at buying another freighter to cope with rising cargo demand. “We carry a lot of cargo. Nauru produces nothing so everything has to be imported.”....