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Bashir Abdel Hadi, CEO of MRO services provider JorAMCo, explains why blooding new Jordanian recruits will secure the company's future.

How has the company developed during the past 12 months?

2007 was a busy year and there were several ambitious projects ongoing. Mainly, we built new hangars and employed more people. We also started our own academy for training engineers and incorporated a maintenance IT solution to support our business.

The hangars, which became operational last summer, almost double our capacity to five wide-body based facilities that can handle up to 13 aeroplanes of different sizes.

What made you decide to expand the company?

We always had a bottleneck in capacity. I believe in the bicycle theory that we must keep pedalling and unless there is a specific reason to stop, the normal development is growth.

Having achieved a level of growth from a capacity point of view, we are now concentrating on training, a continuous improvement programme that we adopted a couple of years ago, and issues like health and safety.

We will also concentrate on enhancing sustainability management, where we not only look at business development and finances but also our environmental and social performance.

Growth and adding new people to any organisation is always about getting people to fit in and maintain the company culture. It's also about enhancing the culture with newcomers rather than weakening it and that's what 2008 is all about.

Which clients have you secured during the past 12 months?

We have a long-term agreement with a number of low-cost carriers in Europe such as Niki and Central Wings. We have clients in India and Russia and a new customer from Turkey.

Our strength is airframe maintenance and 80% of our business is that. We have component and engineering services to support aircraft in the hangar. Our strategy at this stage of expansion is to concentrate on components that are required to support the company's airframe business.

How important is it to secure business from growing markets like India and China?

We have been working with the Indian market for the last three to four years but recently signed contracts with new airlines. We previously worked for Air India for several years and are now working with other clients as well.

Are there any US carriers also on your radar?

The US is far away. We can serve a radius of five hours for narrow bodies, which covers all of India, Russia, Europe, most of Africa and the Middle East. For the wide bodies it could be further, but a 10 hour radius is reasonable. There are potential clients that we are in discussions with, most of which are from Europe and we expect to announce something soon.

How do you deal with competition in this region?

Competition is worldwide. There is big competition because aeroplanes are meant to fly and they have the freedom to go anywhere. There is competition in this region, but maybe not too much. In Europe it's not great because of the price difference. The prices in Europe can be prohibitive in airframe maintenance.

There is some competition from the Far East in places like Singapore, but in general our position is quite strong because of the value proposition.

The cost structure in Jordan is reasonable and the wages, although we are increasing them to keep the qualified people at the company, are reasonable compared to other places. We rely on local expertise while others in the region turn to expatriates, which is more expensive.

What are you doing to overcome the shortage in skilled MRO workers?

The major bottleneck in aviation right now is finding qualified people. It takes time to train individuals and fresh graduates will require four to six years to become certified engineers. This is why we started our own training academy where we take people from high school and provide them with a comprehensive four year programme approved by the UK Civil Aviation Authority.

Within four years they graduate with EASA 66 at B1 or B2 and this is a fast track to qualification. We have two courses going on right now, but it will take three to four years before the first batch is ready.

In the long run, this is the solution because education in Jordan is an important thing and all youngsters are looking for good opportunities and career paths. This is what we offer. When we are talking about competition, it relates more to people where companies pinch qualified staff from each other.

So poaching staff is an ongoing problem for you?

Traditionally, JorAMCo was a source for many companies in the region. It was frustrating but at the same time it permitted us to develop more people. Now we are expanding we feel it more, which is why we redesigned our pay structure for certified staff and started the academy.

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