Flying Privately: Outfitting an Airliner as a Business Jet – BJT

You have a very substantial refurbishment and interiors company and I was hoping you could take us through the basics of how that process works when somebody purchases a pre-owned aircraft and for these purposes I was hoping we could actually talk about if somebody's purchasing like a BBJ for example. Right, typically when a customer approaches us with a newly acquired aircraft there's a need to either do refurbishment, system upgrades, cabin modifications, layout changes, that's the kind of things where we are really specialized on and we offer a set of services to the customer starting with our own interior design department where we have a team of designers really specialized in drafting new layouts or drafting new design packages, choosing new materials, soft materials, new woods, re-veneering or re-varnishing the interior, changing carpets, that's the typical set of activities that are needed and that are requested by freshly new owners of such BBJs. So we would just consult the customer with the new design proposals and then along with that of course drafting quotations, proposals with a project timeline because these are projects that always come with a certain lead time either for material procurement, project preparation but also for engineering because these refurbishments are actually modifications to the aircraft so they need to be certified by an ODA or a part 21 design organization which we also have integrated in our organization and along with that we would then sign a contract with the customer for the project, the aircraft would at some point then come to our hangars and then we would start modifying the cabin which means removing seats, removing interior, removing carpets and then we have a set of shops within our facilities where we can have the capacity to do all those changes in-house so we don't need to send anything outside to subcontracted organizations and we would then start doing recovering seats, changing carpets, recovering panels in the cabin, new systems as well because one very important element are the systems especially on the aging aircraft where you would need to look at the obsolescence of systems if a BBJ has 10-15 years you would definitely need to reconsider probably CMS, IFE upgrades, changes to the connectivity of course which is a big topic over the last years because there has been a lot of new options and new possibilities, new systems that came to the market and we would then work on all these items and then at the end deliver the aircraft to a happy customer potentially and be the MRO of choice for the future. That's excellent. So can you give a little bit of advice to someone who maybe hasn't done this before? It can be very intimidating even like thinking about doing this and what should they be looking out for when choosing somebody to trust the aircraft with? If we look at larger planes like BBJ we definitely would advise any customer in case he doesn't have access to approach potentially a consultant to really take the customer the long path of these processes because we are looking at larger projects where there's a lot of new information and new activities coming where the typical buyer or typical owner would not be that familiar with the cabin modification, with the certification, with the requirements and also ensuring that the work is carried out to his full satisfaction at the end. We also are working closely with either external designers or consultants like completion managers who are typically the experts to take the customer by the hand and really make sure that he's comfortable with the whole process because another thing which people generally underestimate is the number of review meetings and the number of interactions that you need to have with the final with the owner of the aircraft in order whether it's the selection of material, the review of the renderings, the details, inlays, finishings and so on. There's a lot of details coming together that needs to be really reviewed in detail and needs to be approved by the owner in order for the completion center to be moved forward. So how do you handle that? Will the consultant step in and handle that? Let's say they're in another part of the world, does the actual customer have to be there to approve those things or can you do it remotely? We do both ways. We are working a lot on governmental planes where typically the customers always have more than one person, they have teams. We have private customers that trust us, that trust us on the AMAC brand and on the AMAC quality and they don't necessarily have people on site but we also have of course customers as I said who contract completion managers who are then on site either all the time or just for the meetings for defined periods. This is different options and we try just to accommodate every request. I know you have done some very elaborate projects and very unique original projects but if we're just talking about what is a basic way to do it if the customer is thinking about reselling this aircraft in the future, are there certain things you need to consider with materials or configuration? I assume you help with that but what are some considerations they should think about? We typically start with the usage of the aircraft. Either you have a very private aircraft which can have a very bespoke design, bespoke material, bespoke cabin arrangements, number of seats, all these are the elements that are making up let's say the final project. We also have a lot of charter aircraft so an aircraft going to the charter market is a different set of requirements. You need more seats, you need to have a practical galley, you have to have short ways for the serving, you need to have a bedroom that suits all requirements. All of that really comes down to the usage of the aircraft and here we are discussing that with the customer in order to define the best set of the solution. Whether it's the arrangement, whether it's the systems, whether it's also the materials, charter aircraft needs to be durable so you need more durable materials whether it's leathers, laminates or NTFs, carpets. If you take a very high grade silk carpet in a charter aircraft that for instance would be not advisable because it will be very expensive, will be a hand tufted carpet but you will ruin it probably after six months and you need to change it. So for this type of operation we would consult the customer to go with a more durable carpet with collars that are more forgiving than others. Yeah that's a great point. And are you seeing any, is there any way to say that if there's any trends right now? Are you seeing anything that... There are always trends and it always changes. We are working in different regions of the world so whether it's Western Europe or the Asian Pacific region or Africa or the Middle East, you have different trends, different requirements. But within these regions things are changing. If I can take one example, the Middle East 15 years ago, 20 years ago, everything had to be gold, brown and goldish. This has changed completely. The new Middle East with the new leaders, the young generation owners, they are very Western oriented. They come with a very different design these days than their fathers, grandfathers had 15, 20 years ago. Yeah that's so interesting. Okay so one hot topic right now obviously is connectivity because it seems like it's made a huge leap and that seems to be a massive important thing. Nobody wants to be disconnected. So what are you seeing there? We see a general trend in cabin systems where in the old days you had very limited connectivity but you had a more sophisticated entertainment system to compensate a little bit for it. This has changed in a way that entertainment systems get simplified. There's also more streaming possibilities from servers to PEDs and then of course you have connectivity. Now today's generation has really the desire to be connected all the time and technology has changed in a way that we are having now broadband solutions for aircraft where you can have like speeds which you have at home or at the hotel. And this is a big change over the last 10 years I would say. We started back in the mid was 2015 when KA band came to the market which offered the first bandwidth of 10 mbps upwards offering really possibilities of streaming, Netflix in the aircraft, things like that being connected by WhatsApp. That has changed by then. In the meantime we have low earth orbit systems, different systems available on the market. They offer bandwidth for up to 100 mbps even more. So you really have a big change there. So connectivity is the big thing. We as an integrator we are offering all solutions. AMAC is a dealer for different systems and we would consult the customer to see a little bit geographically where they operate because not all systems can work everywhere in the world. So that would be our first approach and then see the requirements how much bandwidth they really need and what are the operating costs, what are the operating plans available with the providers and then tailor a solution. And then at the end, and this is our job then, to integrate the system into the aircraft. And here we are talking about service bulletin solutions, STC developments. AMAC has developed on different systems, many STCs on different platforms. So here we have a set of solutions but we also work with the OEMs to install their solutions under major changes or service bulletins. We are agnostic to the systems and to the providers. We try to find the best solution for the owners, I mean for the customers. And that's actually a really important point is that you are very strict about being agnostic in all ways, right? So you don't show favoritism towards one provider or one OEM. But why is that important for the customer? Because the DNA of AMAC was always to be the independent integrator. We are not affiliated to any OEMs, we are privately owned and we would like to be the neutral consultant and advisor to the customer to find the right solution. So how many people now work at AMAC? We are a group of companies. AMAC is actually a group of eight companies in six countries and the whole group together, we are about 1,600 employees. We have a very large portfolio of services. We do completions in Basel, our largest site and home base is Basel, but we also do airline maintenance in Turkey. We do corporate jets and helicopters in south of France. We do aircraft charter and management out of Zurich. We are a very diverse group of different activities. And this is also something which proved to be a good fit to customers who are looking for one-stop shop solutions. So AMAC as such can offer more than just the MRO or the cabin configuration. We offer cargo services, we offer aircraft management operation, we offer also solutions for aircraft records, digitalization and storage. It's a portfolio of different services that can be useful for typically VIP general aviation operators throughout the world. And throughout their lives, right? Like you could come and just stick with AMAC throughout various different aircraft, right? Our customer base is, I would say, 99% recurrent customers. So we have a very loyal base of customers and we are building long-term relations with our customers in general.