BAE Systems Builds on Regional Support Strategy with Second Americas Region Operators Conference

Prestwick, Scotland.....Building on its regional support strategy that aims to bring realistic, affordable and convenient support options to customers in further-afield geographic markets BAE Systems Regional Aircraft has just concluded its second Americas Region Operators Conference.

Held in Miami, Florida, the commercial aviation hub that serves Central and South America, more than 40 conference delegates attended comprising representatives from airlines in the region as well as major vendors and service providers along with senior executives from BAE Systems.

Also in attendance were executives from leading global logistics company, Kuehne + Nagel (K+N) who hosted a visit to their Miami warehouse which is destined to hold a quantity of BAe 146/Avro RJ and Jetstream 41 consumable and rotable spares that will better serve operators of these aircraft in the Americas market.

“Our customers were pleased that following our first Americas operators conference in Lima, we were able to demonstrate progress on delivering a key requirement from that conference by providing a local spares holding that is more convenient for them”, said John Stevens, Head of Customer Support for BAE Systems Regional Aircraft.

“Also, we were able to report strong progress on achieving a Life Extension Programme on the Jetstream 32, which is a popular feederliner and corporate aircraft in Latin America. We are working closely with Aerolinea de Antioquia of Medellin, Colombia which is the fleet lead-time operator. When this receives airworthiness authority approval from EASA, which will raise the airframe life limit from 40,000 cycles to 67,000 cycles, we anticipate that the aircraft will be able to enjoy 15-20 years more service and it is fair to say that our operators in the region are delighted with this.

Mr Stevens continued: “We were very pleased with the support we received from our vendors and service providers and whilst our customers are generally satisfied with the level of support they get, there are still opportunities to improve our support offering in the region and we will be taking further actions as a result of this conference which was one of the best and most interactive that we have held.”