Demand for aircraft storage soaring
AN AIRCRAFT storage site in Australia’s Red Centre could be the country’s greatest Covid success story, experiencing massive growth in the face of the pandemic.
A total of 140 aircraft ranging from turboprops to superjumbos, are currently assembled at the sprawling Alice Springs site, representing many of the region’s major carriers.
There are A380s from Singapore Airlines, A330s and Boeing 777s from Cathay Pacific, 737s from Garuda Indonesia and A320s and ATRs from Cebu Pacific, plus a varrugby
iety of jets from aircraft lessors.
In response to the seemingly endless stream of mothballed aircraft, Asia Pacific Aircraft Storage has undergone a rapid expansion from the equivalent of about four fields of plane parking to 30. “Everyone thinks we started just as Covid struck but we set up this business 12 years ago, and we were just about to build stage 2,” said APAS managing director Tom Vincent.
“We were well-placed and positioned to catch the wave of demand for storage.”
In the space of 18 months, three new stages have been added with work now underway on a new 12,000 sqm engine run bay, and plans for a massive stage 5.
The development signalled Mr Vincent’s confidence the need for aircraft storage would continue to grow even when borders reopened and international travel resumed.
“There continues to be refleeting by airlines with older, less efficient aircraft being replaced with next generation, fuel efficient aircraft with more favourable maintenance cycles,” he said.
But any suggestion that APAS would become more of an “aircraft graveyard” postCovid, filled with ageing, unwanted jets, was dismissed by Mr Vincent.
He said any aircraft not suitable for reactivation were parted out and disassembled by a highly skilled workforce. “To call us a boneyard, is a blight on what we do,” he said. “In the last 18 months we reactivated 48 aircraft. All returned to service with nil defects.”