Thanks in part to gaining more business from Dassault Falcon operators, ExecuJet MRO Services has been growing its workforce in Australia.
“When Dassault Aviation acquired ExecuJet MRO Services Australia in 2019, Falcon aircraft accounted for a very small percentage of our maintenance business, but today it accounts for 15%,” said Grant Ingall, regional VP, Australasia, at ExecuJet MRO Services. “Our workforce in Australia today is over 100 personnel including contract labour, while in 2019 we averaged 80. So we’ve grown 25% in the last four years.”
ExecuJet MRO Services Australia has heavy maintenance bases in Sydney, Perth and Melbourne, as well as line stations in other cities, such as Brisbane in Australia and Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington in New Zealand, to support Falcons on-demand.
“We have invested in tooling and training for maintenance of Falcon aircraft at all of our Australian bases in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane,” said Ingall. “We have completed Dassault specialised horizontal stabiliser bushing measurement training and structural mapping training. Later this year we will be upgrading our non-destructive testing (NDT) capabilities. We will, for example, be able to perform the ultrasonic inspection of the horizontal stabiliser, a task we previously had to bring in specialists from Dassault to perform.”
ExecuJet MRO Services, since the Dassault purchase in 2019, has either trained or hired altogether 15 engineers and technicians rated on Falcon types. “ExecuJet technicians and engineers are continuing to be sent from Australia to Dassault Aviation for advanced technical training including the new aircraft types such as the Falcon 6X,” said Ingall.
The 6X is due to gain certification and enter service in the middle of this year.
Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), since February 2020, has approved ExecuJet MRO Services Australia as a factory-owned Dassault Aviation MRO organisation, to do line and heavy maintenance on all in-production types: the Falcon 7X/8X, Falcon 900LX and Falcon 2000LXS.
ExecuJet is also approved by CASA to service some out-of-production models, namely the Falcon 50/50EX, Falcon 900/C/DX/EX/EX EASy and Falcon 2000/EX/LX.
ExecuJet last year completed heavy maintenance C-checks on two Falcon 900EX aircraft. One is an Australian registered aircraft used by a mining company and the other is a VIP aircraft operated by Papua New Guinea’s national carrier, Air Niugini. The VIP aircraft is under FalconCare, a comprehensive Dassault Aviation maintenance cost programme designed to help customers manage their maintenance budgets. Only factory-owned or Dassault-authorised MRO service centres are permitted to work on aircraft under the FalconCare programme.
