Nov. 27--Today's the day.
AAR Aircraft Services begins operations today at the former Northwest Airlines maintenance base when Air Canada lands its first jet in Duluth for maintenance.
Larry Durbin, AAR's vice president of operations in Duluth, was busy with final preparations on Monday. Company spokesman Chris Mason confirmed the first plane arrives today.
Base operations will start with one line doing heavy maintenance checks on one plane at a time. That takes 15 to 45 days. Within a year, three more maintenance lines will be up and running, creating about 135 more jobs.
Besides creating a total of about 225 well-paying, skilled jobs, AAR's new maintenance, repair and overhaul base servicing Air Canada's fleet of 89 Airbus A320 series jets is expected to boost the local aviation industry.
"I'm excited," said Christopher Eng, Duluth's head of business and community development. "I can't wait for the plane to get here."
A celebration welcoming Air Canada to Duluth will be held at the AAR maintenance base in early January, he said.
The city and AAR announced in April that the company would be moving into the base. The 188,000-square-foot maintenance base was built for Northwest Airlines in the early 1990s. Northwest moved out in 2005, putting hundreds out of work. Since then, it's been largely vacant.
City officials and local economic development leaders sought to find a similar use for the base. They began courting AAR last year and last summer helped persuade Air Canada to use the base.
AAR, a publicly traded company based in Wood Dale, Ill., is a leading provider of maintenance, repair and overhaul services to airlines. The company also has MRO bases in Miami, Indianapolis, Oklahoma City and Hot Springs, Ark.
"To me, this is a huge story for the Twin Ports," said Brian Hanson, CEO and President of Area Partnership for Economic Expansion. "That plane arriving (today) will be a win for everyone."
So far, AAR has hired nearly 90 people, including airframe and power plant mechanics, inspectors and sheet metal and interior specialists. They include 56 directly on AAR's payroll, seven more who haven't started yet and 24 contract workers, Eng said.
With AAR's five-year contract with Air Canada, there's no need -- nor room -- for more customers. Servicing its Airbus jets alone will bring the base to full capacity.
The base's startup, following several job fairs and weeks of training employees, is right on schedule.
"The narrative all along is that we're working with a first-class company here," Hanson said. "And their ability to follow through indicates they are a first class company."
AAR now services Air Canada's Airbus jets at its Miami base but will transition the work to the new Duluth base over the next year.
Copyright 2012 - Duluth News Tribune
