ExecuJet MRO Services' new maintenance facility at Dubai Al Maktoum International Airport (OMDW) opened earlier this month and has already handled almost a dozen aircraft, said ExecuJet MRO Dubai maintenance director Nick Weber. The company, which is a subsidiary of Dassault Aviation, shares the same brand with ExecuJet FBO but is now a completely separate business with separate ownership and management team.
“We had some aircraft scheduled for mid-May or thereabouts to commence work in the facility,” he told AIN. “We want to settle in; we want to settle the staff in. Dassault hasn’t set a finite date for the official opening, but we will probably have a soft opening, so to speak, and then the official launch probably later in the year.”
The outfit’s heavy maintenance facility has been at Dubai International Airport (OMDB). “We have line stations at OMDB and at OMDW,” he said. “We are moving our heavy maintenance facility to OMDW but at OMDB we will maintain aircraft-on-ground services.”
ExecuJet (Booth Z72) maintains its own identity and its own management team, even though Dassault acquired ExecuJet MRO services, he said. “It continues to be what’s called a multi-original equipment manufacturer MRO; it has the capability to serve Bombardier, Embraer, and Hawker, all of which it has served for many years. Nothing’s really changed. The MRO continues to serve other OEMs; it’s just that following the acquisition by Dassault Aviation, we have added the Dassault capability.”
In underlining the OEMs ExecuJet MRO works with, Weber noted that the Middle East operation did not support Gulfstreams. “We never have because of Jet Aviation, but Australia and South Africa do, for example, support Gulfstreams,” he said. “We do Bombardiers, which we have from the outset, and Hawkers and Embraers as well—very much all the Embraer product line.”
Weber said the Dassault fleet in the region was growing and that its business related to that OEM now represented around 30 percent of the total. “In 2020, it was 7 percent and it grew to 18 percent in 2021 and is currently tracking 30 percent,” he said. “It’s been a tremendous pick up for us, taking on all these new products and supporting them.”