A new MRO strategy for Dassault Aviation |
| Léo Barnier |
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14 MAR 2019 | 447 words
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© Dassault Aviation / Paper&Plane |
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With Execujet in January and TAG Aviation in February, Dassault Aviation has just acquired in one fell swoop two major business aviation MRO companies. The manufacturer is broadly expanding its own service station network, marking a development in its customer support strategy.
"We want to have a worldwide footprint with a network of our own certified service stations in order to offer quality and continuity in our service with direct support to our customers everywhere around the world", explained Eric Trappier, CEO of Dassault Aviation, during his results conference on 28th February. Fifteen new maintenance centres are now under the manufacturer's umbrella.
This new strategy does seem to make sense given the major role now played by customer services in business aviation, whether for purchasing decision-making or for generating additional revenue.
We can also see this as a response to Gulfstream, which was the first company to light the touch paper in this sector. Jet Aviation - the manufacturer's "sister company" within General Dynamics, the very term used by Derek Zimmerman, president of Product Support at Gulfstream - bought out Hawker Pacific in Spring 2018.
This enabled the American group to strike a major blow with the reinforcement of its maintenance capabilities in Asia, but also with the first control taken of a "multi-brand" MRO company.
Targeted reinforcement
In detail, the buyout of ExecuJet's worldwide maintenance activities from the Luxaviation group is enabling Dassault Aviation to develop towards Asia and Oceania. The company has eleven service stations spread over South Africa, Australia, the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, Nigeria and New Zealand. The transaction does not include ExecuJet's shareholdings in Lufthansa Bombardier Aviation Services (LBAS), in Germany and Russia.
As for TAG Aviation, only its business jet maintenance activities in Europe have been bought over - which is still the essential part of the Swiss group's network, with four MRO centres in France, Portugal, the United Kingdom and Switzerland.
These different maintenance activities will be integrated gradually in 2019, subject to the necessary authorisations being granted. For now they will retain their respective branding, except for TAG Aviation which will now be named TAG Maintenance Services. "We will protect the brand for a while as these service stations manage aircraft from other manufacturers. Over time they will be integrated into the global network under the Dassault brand".
The price of these acquisitions is being kept secret for now by Dassault Aviation. Eric Trappier simply stated that they weren't very large transactions. And the CEO isn't closing the door on future acquisitions, even if they don't present much of a geographical or strategic interest, with specific skills to reinforce the existing network.
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Léo Barnier
Specialized journalist
Industry & Technology, Equipments, MRO
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