MEBA10: Middle East-based VIP completions centre opens its doors

Speaking at the MEBAA General Assembly at Airport Expo yesterday morning, founding chairman Ali Al Naqbi said the time was right for VIP completions to be established in the region. “Nearly 70 per cent of aircraft in this region are corporate airliners or widebodies,” he said. “And that equates to almost a quarter of the world market. And yet our owners have to travel to Europe or to the USA to get their aircraft designed, cabins installed and then repairs.

“Now is the time for people to look at partnering in the region.”

Within hours of Al Naqbi’s appeal, two Saudi Arabian companies took centre stage to shake up the aircraft interiors industry.

MAZ Aviation (chalet 3) held a special event to announce an agreement with MRO provider Alsalam Aircraft that is designed to propel the latter to the forefront of the global VIP completions business and give owners in the Middle East a real alternative to the providers in Europe and the USA.

“We design interiors for our VIP customers and have achieved a high level of penetration in that market,” said MAZ chairman Mohammed Al Zeer. “Alsalam Aircraft’s range of interiors capabilities, as demonstrated by the VIP C-130 that they handed over to the customer yesterday, is unique in this region. Our complementary relationship can only be good for the industry and for customers in the Middle East.”

Pictured: MAZ chairman Mohammed Al Zeer and Mohamed Nur Fallatah, President and CEO of Al Salam.

MAZ carries out an average of six VIP interior design projects, according to Al Zeer, and currently suggests completions centres from outside the region to its customers. “From now on we will strongly recommend our new partner to clients – we believe in Alsalam Aircraft,” he declared.

Alsalam is due to deliver another luxury C-130 to the same customer next March.

Suggestions of a completions centre being established in the region have been made in the past. “It’s been talked about,” said Richard Gaona, president of Comlux, whose company owns a completions business in the USA. Speaking ahead of MEBA, Gaona said: “The biggest challenge is recruiting skilled personnel. In this industry you see generations of craftsmen at the company, with skills passing on through the family. That’s why the industry gravitates to the areas where the experience is.”

Alsalam has been steadily developing those skills behind the closed doors of Saudi Arabia.

The company carried out its first VIP completion, a Lockheed TriStar, in 2001-2 and since then has completed seven or eight major projects for Saudi customers. It is now in talks with a couple of potential customers about a Boeing 757 and another C-130, and hopes to firm up one contract before the end of the year and other in the first quarter of 2011.