Chris Kjelgaard

San Luis Obispo-headquartered business aviation services company ACI Jet (Booth 630, 2219) is expecting its airframe and engine MRO business to grow by 25 to 30 percent in the next 12 months, well before a $19 million expansion of the company’s MRO and FBO facility at the California city’s McChesney Field (SBP) is due to open. In addition to its growing MRO business, ACI Jet operates FBOs at four Southern California airports, operates a charter fleet of 12 business jets, manages business aircraft for owners, and provides flight operations services.

 


Fueled in part by ACI Jet’s new status as an authorized dealer of and MRO provider for Honeywell avionics and other Honeywell equipment, the anticipated rapid growth of its MRO business in the short term is driving a need for ACI Jet to hire 10 new employees in the next 12 months for that part of its operation, according to Dave Jensen, the company’s v-p maintenance. Of the 10 new MRO jobs ACI Jet is creating in the next 12 months, four will be required for its fledgling Honeywell avionics installation and servicing business and most of the new MRO jobs will be “head of household”-level positions, Jensen told AIN.

 


In addition to making another 10 new jobs available within the next 12 months in the other three areas of its business, ACI Jet expects to hire another four to six employees 12 to 24 months from now to continue growing its Honeywell avionics-MRO operation, Jensen said. Beyond that, the company expects its employee count to continue growing following the planned completion in March 2020 of its sizable new facility at SBP, construction of which began on September 19. For one thing, at present “we’re probably only at 60 percent capacity” in terms of the employees ACI Jet has available to meet the physical capacity its facilities offer for aircraft MRO work—not including the new SBP facility expansion.

 


Not only will the new facility give ACI Jet another 30,000 square feet of MRO hangar space, but it will also provide 36,000 sq ft of office space that the company will use to expand its SBP FBO and to house its flight-operations services business. “Putting them all in one facility is pretty unique on the MRO side,” said Jensen. He said one of ACI Jet’s main motivations for doing so is that while business-aircraft owners have long been used to high standards of service at FBOs and flight-ops facilities, a similar standard of personal “service in MRO facilities seems to get neglected.”

 


For ACI Jet’s customers, that will change when its new all-in-one facility at SBP opens: “This is going to be one of the nicest facilities in the Western United States,” said Jensen. He said SBP’s location in a major wine-making region in scenic Southern California hill country and the fact the airport has expanded its network of airline-served destinations to include several major hubs mean ACI Jet’s customers not only love coming to San Luis Obispo, but they are finding the company’s MRO facility very convenient to use. “The MRO business is expanding and that feeds the FBO business too,” Jensen remarked.

 


ACI Jet’s charter fleet consists of three Bombardier Global Express XRSs, three Challenger 604s, five Cessna Citation Excels/XLSs, and one Gulfstream GIV-SP. While ACI Jet isn’t contemplating expanding its charter fleet much beyond its existing size, “the motivation for the expansion of the repair station [at SBP] is to support the types we specialize in,” said Jensen. This is particularly true for the Bombardier types, he said, because there is a perceived “lack of support for Bombardier on the West Coast.” Additionally, the company’s “Honeywell [dealership and service-center authorization] is a key part of that growth plan.” ACI Jet will have the ability to conduct “very large projects” involving Honeywell avionics equipment in its SBP repair station, such as performing Primus Elite and&nbsp;JetWave satcom installations.

 


The company plans to keep its flight-ops services business “select and small,” said Jensen, but in the medium term ACI Jet “will continue to look to expand” its FBO business to additional airports in the Southwestern U.S. “We definitely see the FBO side as providing the most [notable] expansion of locations” as ACI Jet grows, he said. The company also plans to offer light and medium line maintenance services at each new FBO it opens.

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