Desert Birds

As managing director of Asia Pacific Aircraft Storage (APAS), Vincent is responsible for a small, and what he hopes, growing fleet ofaircraft that will call Australia’s first aircraft parking facility home.

However, aircraft that come to the Alice Springs-based APAS are not left sitting idly under the Northern Territory sun.

They are regularly maintained, checked and serviced to ensure they are quickly able to return to service or be handed over to new owners. “People like to call it a boneyard or a graveyard. The reality is quite the opposite,” Vincent says.

“If an aircraft is in a storage program, it is being maintained. There are quite intensive checks that go on, as well as additional service bulletins or airworthiness directives that need to be undertaken. ” Vincent says Boeing and Airbus aircraft have specific storage programs, which require work being undertaken on the aircraft sometimes as often as every seven days, as well as rolling checks at longer intervals.

Alternatively, aircraft that have reached the end of their useful life are in industry terms “parted out”.

Components such as the engines, avionics and other serviceable parts are carefully removed, tagged and prepared for sale or reuse.

And there is quite a lot of money at stake – an Aviation Week report in December 2013 said the market for surplus parts, or used serviceable material, was worth about US$3 billion a year.

The work to dismantle an aircraft and extract the roughly 2,000 useful parts required skilled, qualifiedengineers and technicians, as well as the nod from regulators.

APAS has secured Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) approval to work on both Australian and Singaporean-registered aircraft. It currently employs about 12 to 15 people during peak periods and is in a “pretty rapid expansion phase”, Vincent says.

“The regulatory approval is a critical aspect because aircraft aren’t simply brought onto site and parked and that’s it,” Vincent says in an interview with Australian Aviation.

“It is a far more intensive process and one that generates quite an amount of employment in our facility. ” Currently, APAS is approved to work on Boeing 737, 767 and 747 aircraft. It is also approved for Airbus A320 Family aircraft and the A330.

Vincent says the company is looking to expand its capabilities, both in terms of aircraft type and engine type, as well as looking to secure European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) approval to be able to handle aircraft from more countries.

The idea of an aircraft storage facility in Alice Springs was born five and a half years ago, when Vincent realised airlines in the Asia Pacific could save money and time if an alternative to the old US air force bases in the California desert was available in their own backyard.

Alice Springs represented the ideal location given the space available and, importantly, the right climate to keep aircraft in good condition while on the ground.

He sub-leased about 115 hectares from Alice Springs Airport, secured funding from Australian investors through a capital raising, designed the site and worked with CASA to gain the necessary approvals.

While doors were officially opened in 2013, it took a little while for the first aircraft to arrive.

“All industries, including aviation, can be hesitant or reluctant to adopt change,” Vincent says.

“This is completely new, it is a bespoke asset that has been created from scratch on a greenfield site. ” Tigerair Singapore was the first high-profile customer when it started sending Airbus A320 Family aircraft earlier in 2014, and APAS secured a major coup in September when Qantas sentVH-OGR, a Boeing 767‑300ER being retired, there for storage. Qantas’s Network Aviation also sent an Embraer EMB-120 Brasilia aircraft to APAS for storage following lease expiry.

There are seven aircraft at APAS currently and with the huge number of aircraft orders booked by Asia Pacific carriers, Vincent is confident APAS will be able to meet the needs of airlines as they undergo fleet renewal.

“We see an increase in acceptance of the services that we are offering and we think that initial customers such as Qantas and Tigerair Singapore will lead to others recognising and making use of the local alternative,” Vincent says. “It just takes time to bring people around but once you do that you start to see a change in the tide. ” For stage one, APAS has developed about 10 hectares of the site, which represented enough capacity for about 15-20 aircraft.

Planning for stage two was underway, which would add an extra 15 hectares and increase capacity to between 50-60 aircraft through more hardstands and additional bays for aircraft induction, reactivation and part out work.

“Our overall goal is to develop the entire site – that could see us holding in excess of 250 aircraft,” Vincent says.

And with a growing workforce of skilled engineers, the company is also exploring the prospect of offering line maintenance both at Alice Springs and other ports.