Jet Aviation Ready for Asia's Bizjets

Asian Aerospace 2000 -- When activity in the Asia's business jet market picks up, Jet Aviation will be ready.

The Swiss maintenance and support company might have jumped the gun when it opened a maintenance facility at Seletar here in Singapore in 1995, little expecting the Asian recession to strike just a couple of years later. But it stuck firm, weathered the downturn, and is ready to gear up as the business jets return to the region, Heinz Koehli, president and COO of Jet Aviation Europe/Middle & Far East, told Show News.

Those with long memories might recall the maintenance center and FBO was called "Jet Maintenance"-but no more. After winning a legal battle with a local company over the name some eighteen months ago, the business adopted its originally intended moniker of Jet Aviation (Asia-Pacific) Pte. Ltd.

Jet Aviation Singapore provides complete maintenance services and avionics support to business aircraft of all sizes, and is an authorized service center for Gulfstream, Learjet and Cessna Citation aircraft. The Singapore facility also represents the Universal Avionics in Asia and is a dealer for Honeywell avionics products. It offers complete FBO services and has a flight coordination center that supports its aircraft management and charter clients.

Despite the recession vice-president & general manager Ruedi Kraft has been burning up the airways and knocking on doors to drum up new business among business jet operators across Asia.

"We do maintain most of the remaining business aircraft in Asia-from Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines," said Koehli. "The center achieved its budget in 1999, but it will take two to three years before it starts making real money."

Asian Aerospace is a "must" for Jet Aviation, he added. "We have a local presence, and we want everyone to know it."

By John Morris