The acquisition of the MRO business of Denver-based Mayo Aviation gives Stevens Aerospace a toehold in the Rocky Mountain region of the U.S., allowing further access for operators based in the western half of the country. The expansion won’t end there, according to Stevens president Christian Sasfai, who added that the company will concentrate on extending Mayo’s maintenance business beyond serving its own needs.
“Mayo never put an emphasis on what I'll call retail business,” said Sasfai. “So we see quite a bit of opportunity to grow the retail side.”
With the acquisition of Mayo’s MRO division at Denver Centennial Airport, Stevens now operates from four bases, including shops in Greenville, South Carolina; Nashville, Tennessee; and Atlanta.
One of Stevens’ first orders of business will involve hiring enough mechanics to increase its capacity from one shift to two. The company will need to quickly add at least another eight technicians to its current staff of 12, noted Sasfai. While the shortage of mechanics throughout the industry certainly has affected MRO providers in general, Sasfai projected a bit more optimism about Stevens’ ability to attract the necessary talent.
“[The mechanics’ shortage] was more difficult in the past couple of years, but it has eased up recently,” he noted. “And that's another reason to be in a market like Denver. It's a large enough metropolitan area that there are technicians in the vicinity and other employers that provide similar services.”
Sasfai further explained that, for Stevens, the volume of work has returned to what he called a normal pace after the frantic tempo the company experienced during the Covid pandemic. “We still see aircraft transactions because we do pre-purchase evaluations," he said. “We still see people using their airplanes and getting inspections and such done. So it’s very encouraging. And none of our customers have indicated that they're seeing any drastic change in flying habits one way or the other in the near future.”
Apart from organic growth, Sasfai noted that opportunities to acquire existing MRO operations such as Mayo largely depend on their locations. “We like to find existing operations to which we can apply our business model,” he explained. “And the only real restriction is that it's not so close to an existing location that we step on our own toes, because airplanes are mobile. If we were to get something within a couple hundred miles of an existing location, you really just cannibalize that location.”
A natural benefit of acquiring existing operations includes the fact that they typically come with much of the necessary tools and other infrastructure, explained Sasfai. For Stevens, that means less cost and more time to concentrate on preparing its information technology systems and any modification of the machinery to start serving customers.
Already supporting a wide variety of aircraft models, from smaller airplanes such as King Airs to big jets such as Gulfstreams, Stevens envisions the workscope of the Denver shop ranging from light turboprops to medium-sized business jets. “We think that with the number and type of airplanes that Mayo operates and that our sister company [Tenax Aerospace] operates, that's going to take up a majority of the capacity, and then there are enough similar airplanes that we could service on a retail basis,” he explained. “So we prefer to focus on fewer airframes, but become experts on those…instead of trying to be all things to all people.”
Stevens’ acquisition of Mayo Aviation’s MRO business further tightens its alliance with the George J. Priester Aviation group. Last year, Stevens acquired the maintenance operations of Hill Private Aviation, Priester’s Southeast base. This latest alliance offers Priester customers more access to MRO capabilities for all aircraft types and gives Mayo customers more benefits such as preferential maintenance scheduling.
“This allows us to better focus on our aircraft owners and charter services while offering a national MRO partnership to our customers, giving them more options, capabilities, and expertise,” said Mayo Aviation president Brent Moldowan. “Stevens offers a robust maintenance provider plan nationwide for our owners, with a proven track record.”