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View Full Version : Jetstar To Establish A Second Heavy Maintenance Base


Brad Myer
12th October 2009, 12:41 PM
JETSTAR is in advanced talks with three state governments about establishing a second Australian heavy-maintenance base and a new engineering-training centre.

The low-cost Qantas offshoot has an existing Airbus A320 maintenance facility in Newcastle, NSW, but needs a second base to cope with its aggressive growth. It has also not ruled out taking work from other airlines.

The carrier is keen to establish the engineering academy to provide a pipeline of skilled labour for its Australian operations, but says it could also act as a training centre for engineers across its Asian brands.

The airline hopes to have the new heavy-maintenance facility established by next year and estimates it would initially create about 100 skilled jobs. But it says there is the potential, when the training academy is included, for this to grow to 300.

The facility would look at both narrow- and wide-body aircraft maintenance, as well as doing work for the Singapore-based Jetstar Asia fleet, and executives say it has attracted strong interest from the three governments.

"We're far down the track in terms of evaluation of options but we've got a broad set of options and they include all the major centres on the east coast," Jetstar chief executive Bruce Buchanan said. "We're looking at Sydney, Melbourne and the Gold Coast for the three primary options."

Mr Buchanan said the new facilities were likely to be set up in a staged approach. He said the positioning of the training academy and maintenance base were not necessarily directly linked.

"But we're definitely keen to get the two decisions ticked off," he said. "We could have the heavy-maintenance facility somewhere and a training academy in another city. So they're not directly linked, but we see a need for the two of them and the two will be quite complementary towards each other if we can get both of them up and running."

Like other Australian carriers, Jetstar is facing an ageing labour force of licensed aircraft-maintenance engineers (LAMEs) who sign off on heavy-maintenance work and are closely involved in the airline's line maintenance.

It takes time to train a LAME because they first have to complete an apprenticeship and work for some time as an aircraft maintenance engineer (AME).

Jetstar needs its heavy-maintenance facilities to funnel through AMEs to the next level and will use the training academy as a pipeline to provide replacements.

Good to see JQ looking at keeping all maintenance in Australia and even moving Jetstar Asia work down here.

Liz E
12th October 2009, 01:27 PM
Good news for Jetstar. But what would be the point of keeping two maintenance bases running in Australia? Duplication of costs doesn't sound like standard practice for an LCC. Hmmm wonder if there are there some worried faces at Williamtown..

Ash W
12th October 2009, 04:56 PM
They (when they were Impulse) had a perfectly good maintenance hanger built in Canberra using a subsidy from the ACT taxpayer of course. Now it is being used by Qantas Defence Services, but would be good to see it used for the original purpose.

Gareth U
12th October 2009, 05:18 PM
What about the facility built at LST for the Southern 146s immediately before the LST 146 operation closed? Who has ownership of that now?

Ryan K
12th October 2009, 06:54 PM
Please refrain from quoting the above in its entirety as is is not necessary - mod.

The Qantas hanger at LST seems to have sat idle for quite some time. It was used to house the Virgin Blue 737 a few weeks ago after the engine explosion grounded the aircraft for a few days.

Raymond Rowe
12th October 2009, 08:08 PM
Be nice to see it happen here in Melbourne.Will keep my eyes open when the jobs are adevertised.

Lukas M
12th October 2009, 09:32 PM
What about AVV?

Mat James
13th October 2009, 12:32 AM
instead of establishing a new base, wouldn't it be possible to expanded the base at williamtown? or is there problems with doing that?

damien b
13th October 2009, 05:26 AM
They (when they were Impulse) had a perfectly good maintenance hanger built in Canberra using a subsidy from the ACT taxpayer of course. Now it is being used by Qantas Defence Services, but would be good to see it used for the original purpose.

QDS has essentially left Canberra excluding operations with 34 SQN. They lost the C-130J model maintenance contract. There was talk when i was there in June of leasing it to Qantas link or Qantas for overnight Hanger space.