MRO Profile: Altus Aerospace, 31 Years and Counting

Altus Aerospace, a maintenance provider based at New York’s Long Island MacArthur Airport, traces its roots back to 1995 as privately owned Eastway Jet Services. After a stint under private equity ownership as part of the Hawthorne Global Aviation Services group, it was brought back under private ownership in 2023. Despite the changes in who signed the checks, the company has operated under the same Part 145 certificate for the past three decades.

Altus occupies three 30,000-sq-ft hangars on the field, the site of the former Garrett Long Island facility. While one hangar was built as recently as 2020, the oldest dates back to the 1940s. According to Chris Zarzano, the company’s v-p of maintenance services, it was used to load military transport aircraft heading to Germany for the Berlin Airlift.

Today, rather than handling four-engine C-54 Skymasters packed with supplies needed to keep a divided Berlin alive during the siege, the hangars can accommodate the latest ultra-long-range business jets, with eight to 10 under maintenance at any given time. Last year, the facility handled more than a thousand work orders. In terms of backlog, the facility is booked with projects through the remainder of the year, with limited slots available for tasks such as pre-buy inspections.

With a focus on midsize to large Bombardier and Gulfstream jets, Altus does heavy maintenance, including 192-month checks on the G550, of which it has performed seven. “Right now we work with a capabilities list,” Zarzano told AIN. “The largest aircraft on there is the [Boeing] 737 and [Airbus] A320, but for the bizjets it’s the [Bombardier] Global Express and [Gulfstream] G550.” The Gulfstream G650 will be added soon to that list.

An Embraer factory-authorized service center, it has also conducted 20-year inspections on the Legacy 600 and 10-year inspections on Phenoms. “Generally, we have two big inspections going at the same time,” said Zarzano.

The company was recently named as an authorized dealer and installer for Klatt Works’ smoke-assured vision enhanced display (SAVED) oxygen mask system.

Altus—which is in the process of obtaining its FAA Class 4 repair station designation—is also the designated on-call service provider for the airlines that frequent KISP, including Southwest, JetBlue, and Frontier, with its work on 737s and A320s translating to their private aviation BBJ and ACJ brethren.

With a staff of 25 A&P technicians, the company runs two shifts during weekdays plus a single shift on Saturday. Zarzano noted that the company is hiring more technicians as it looks to add a Sunday shift by the end of the year, but like most in the aviation industry, he is finding skilled technicians hard to come by. He estimates that his current staff averages more than a decade of experience, and cash is king when it comes to retaining them. “As far as hourly techs, they’re probably the highest paid in the region, definitely on Long Island,” Zarzano told AIN. “It’s too costly to lose them and have to kind of continuously restaff and retrain people. We’ll invest in them. If we send them to airframe training or engine training, we’ll have them sign a contract to stay with us for two or three years, depending on the value of the training.”

The company also has a pipeline for newly minted technicians through the Suffolk County BOCES vocational training program, and it has already hired six of the top-performing graduates.

AOG response is also a major focus, and Altus has three fully stocked mobile workshop vans in addition to two other equipped vehicles. While its typical radius is customers in the tri-state area, it has traveled as far as Maine and North Carolina to diagnose and repair distressed aircraft.

The facility has more than five acres of ramp, and the company recently acquired the space that was part of the former Hawthorne FBO on the field. Altus is converting the 1,750 sq ft of space adjoining one of its hangars to a customer lounge, concierge desk, and private customer offices for directors of maintenance or airframer representatives to work from while aircraft are undergoing maintenance.

In terms of expansion, the company just opened a satellite repair station under its same Part 145 certificate, further out on Long Island at Francis S. Gabreski/Westhampton Beach Airport (KFOK). There, it occupies 12,000 sq ft of space in one of Modern Aviation’s hangars.