AAR completes first heavy maintenance check
Published 4:12 am Wednesday, November 27, 2013
AAR officials on Tuesday announced the completion of their first heavy maintenance check on a commercial aircraft at the company’s facility at Chennault International Airport.
The company finished work on the first of four Airbus A330 aircraft, all of which had been left in various stages of repair when Aeroframe vacated the facility in early August. Danny Martinez, AAR’s vice president of technical services, said heavy maintenance checks include disassembling the aircraft, performing structural checks, and upgrading or changing components that need replacing.
“After all that’s done we put the aircraft back together again, and off they go until the next heavy maintenance visit is scheduled,” Martinez said.
Once the work is complete, the aircraft are released to AAR’s clients. Martinez said the clients do not want their identities divulged, but added that the Airbus A330s are all from overseas companies. Three of the aircraft are still in the middle of their heavy maintenance work.
Martinez said AAR hopes to complete all maintenance work and release the aircraft to its clients by the end of the year.
AAR’s work on the first Airbus A330 was completed just two weeks after the company received its Lake Charles operating certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration. Martinez said the company had been working in Lake Charles under its Miami operating certificate as a “work away,” a practice the FAA grants to repair stations that operate remotely.
“We started working on these aircraft because there was an immediate need on several levels,” Martinez said. “One of those needs was employing the folks that were still there when we became the landlord of the facility and were contracted to complete the work. In order to do that quickly we used a process where we can work away from station.”
Martinez said all future AAR aircraft work done locally will be conducted under the company’s Lake Charles operating certificate. AAR’s local facility is its 14th FAA-certified repair station.
(Rick Hickman / American Press)
