Story ID: 857Nexus
Nexus Opens Manila Flight Operations Center
By: Charles Alcock
Caption: Nexus now has a flight operations center in the Philippines and is set to open a training academy in China.
Word Count: 475
Flight operations support group Nexus this week officially launched its new Asian subsidiary and the opening of its flight operations center (FOC) in the Philippines capital Manila. Nexus (Chalet P5) has spent 12 months laying the foundations for the new company, which is called Nexus Asia Flight Services Corporation.

The new FOC is already managing dozens of daily operations for Nexus’s clients and in 2017 will start supporting operators in Hong Kong and China through a joint venture with an undisclosed Chinese partner. The company says it chose Manila for its Asian base due to its central location in the region and the availability of what it called a “cost effective and motivated” workforce, currently numbering 33 people.

“The completion and launch of our Asia FOC in Manila is a key step in our Asia strategy and forms the foundation of our growth throughout the region,” commented Nexus founder and chairman Abdullah Al-Sayed. “Whenever we expand into a new region, we start with our core competency in flight operations and replicate the original FOC that launched Nexus in 2010. In addition to state of the art technology, we have built a world class team of highly trained, experienced aviation professionals.”

According to Nexus Asia CEO Cyril Salanga, the Manila FOC will manage operations from as far west as India and the Middle East, as well as Australia, China, Japan and Korea. “I am very pleased with the team that has been assembled in Manila and the operation is running like a Swiss watch,” he said.

China Academy

Separately, Nexus said it is making progress in the development of its new Nexus Aviation Academy in China. The Saudi Arabia-based company is now establishing several joint ventures to be ready to start offering a variety of aviation training programs from 2017.

Initially, the academy will have courses covering aircraft dispatch, drone operations, ground handling and English language proficiency. Once it has approval from the Civil Aviation Administration of China, Nexus intends to introduce training for pilots and mechanics, too.

Nexus has been working with several prospective joint venture partners in locations such as Xinjiang to Guangdong. The company intends to employ instructors and course curricula from both the U.S. and Europe through its operations auditing subsidiary Wyvern Consulting.

“The demand for professional aviation training in China is nearly unlimited,” Al-Sayed said. “In fact, Bloomberg recently projected that Chinese airlines will need to hire almost 100 pilots a week for the next 20 years to meet the growing demand. And pilots are just the beginning. They will also need dispatchers, schedulers, ground handlers, cabin crew, ticket and gate agents, maintenance technicians and countless other roles. Nexus wants to help China meet this demand by building and staffing local training academies teaching CAAC-approved, professional aviation courses.”