BAE Systems to Develop New Latin American Commercial Aircraft Support Strategy

May 25, 2011. Building on the growing success of its regional airliner products in Latin America, BAE Systems is to develop a more regionalised Latin American strategy to support the increasing numbers of its aircraft now in operation across the Continent.

As recently as 2005 the number of BAE Systems-built regional aircraft operating in Latin America was limited to a handful of customers. Today, there are nearly 40 operators, with some 90 aircraft. These cover most BAE Systems regional aircraft types and are widespread geographically across the Continent.

The new support strategy was unveiled at its first ever Americas operators’ conference, held in Lima, Peru, May 23-24. Co-incidentally, the conference was held on the 14th anniversary of the founding of StarPeru, who currently operate nine BAe 146 regional jetliners.

Sean McGovern, Business Director Support for BAE Systems Regional Aircraft, who chaired the conference, said: “We are placing growing numbers of our portfolio aircraft into Latin American countries, and third parties are also finding the continent a very receptive market for our products. With such a head of steam building up, we have applied additional focus on developing support solutions which are designed to provide a more responsive service to Latin American operators.”

He added: “We are looking to work with internationally-recognised freighting expertise to shorten the lines of communication, hold stock in-country where appropriate and to access repair and overhaul facilities in the Americas for rotable components, thus ensuring that turn times and associated freighting costs are minimised.”

This first conference was very successful with over 40 delegates from Latin and North American operators, major support service providers, and training providers attending.

BAE Systems traditionally holds an annual operator’s conference in the UK, reflecting a strong European customer base, and these forums are valuable gatherings for the exchange of information relating to aircraft operations, support, safety and continued airworthiness issues.

But with growing numbers of aircraft now being placed further afield, BAE Systems held its first Asian Operators Conference in Jakarta , Indonesia early in 2010 and a similar conference in Johannesburg in November 2010 both of which were well attended.