Lee Carey talks to Keith Mwanalushi at AviTrader MRO

EirTrade Aviation recently opened a new facility in Dallas expanding its presence in the U.S.  Keith Mwanalushi caught up with Lee Carey, VP Asset Management to get some insight  into the strategic advantages this brings to the business.

EirTrade Aviation is a global aviation asset management and trading company headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. In June, the company announced the opening of a new facility in Dallas, Texas, the 22,000 square foot facility will complement EirTrade’s existing operations in Europe and Asia. The business is focused on maximising the value of engine assets, its services include technical storage, consignment programmes, technical services – back to birth and current market asset
valuations, engine, aircraft and parts’ trading, aircraft storage and disassembly and end of life programme management.

Lee Carey, VP Asset Management says the facility in Dallas was opened to increase EirTrade’s global footprint – “Dallas was chosen due to its strategic location and aviation expertise already in the region which enabled us to increase our presence and level of service to our clients in the Americas.”

Recently, the facility has begun taking delivery of engines for part out and has a strong pipeline of aircraft engines for part out ranging from CFM56-5B  7B, CF680C2, RB211-535E, V2500-A5. “Along with the focus on engine disassembly, we will continue to focus on both aircraft engines and airframe,” Carey reveals.

Much of EirTrade’s airframe inventory is located at the other five facilities in Europe due to the geographical location of the organisation’s teardown facility in Ireland. Carey says EirTrade will utilise the facility in the U.S. to strategically locate components for both airframe and engine to reduce customer lead times. EirTrade have recently added an additional disassembly line and have teardown slots available for later this year.

The business has been rather fortunate to have experienced significant growth over the last year despite the pandemic and the plan is to continue to build on this momentum. Within the U.S. the company will be targeting both customers and sources for material.

“Yes, we experienced a strong financial year over the last 12 months, and it has been evident that there has been some recovery in the aviation industry to date. We are confident of the market’s recovery to pre-Covid levels and expect this recovery to be gradual over the next 12-18 months as passenger travel increases.”

Carey is confident in the strong recovery of air travel within the U.S. due to the large domestic air travel market and increase in passenger numbers in the past months. “In many respects this could be expected to somewhat replicate the recovery in China which also has a large domestic market.

“As U.S. operators continue to remove their aircraft from storage there will be an increase in the level of maintenance activity and a heightened demand for aircraft components. The opening of the Dallas facility is a timely and strategic one that will allow us to support these operators during this time.”

“Having achieved growth during a pandemic is certainly no mean feat,”.  Carey explains that this achievement was a result of EirTrade having a strong reputation with the worlds MROs, airlines and lessors which has enabled their global reach during this time, in conjunction with maximising opportunities to reduce clients’ costs of early lease returns, maintenance events and aircraft transitions.

Furthermore, he says EirTrade has capitalised on the availability of aircraft and engines for sale at distressed prices which has allowed the company to provide greater value to its clients. “We have always aimed to service a wide variety of aircraft engine platforms across all Airbus and Boeing types allowing the organisation to strategically
focus on servicing freight operators during the Covid-19 pandemic which saw a burgeoning demand for air cargo.”

EirTrade are now hoping that with their new U.S. facility they will soon become as well-known in the U.S, Canada, Caribbean, Latin and South American regions as it is across Europe and Asia.

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