What during the Farnborough Airshow week was announced with a catchy slogan "Satair moves to Space!" was on 24th September inaugurated close to the Heathrow airport in London. During the inauguration of the new building the invited press and selected customers were greeted by the Satair personnel which was partially flown-in from various Satair locations Europa-wide. Guests could admire the brand new facility, which beside the warehouse accommodates the overhaul and repair shop - all this located literally a stone throw from the London Heathrow airport in a commercial development area called Space Waye and closest possible to Satair customers.
The new facility was designed and built in close collaboration with Satair which is a stand-alone and Airbus services company. The new facility, now officially inaugurated, at Space Waye, North Feltham Trading Estate, became fully operational on March 19 and has six times the area and 11 times the cubic capacity of its previous Heston, Middlesex, facility which Satair had occupied for almost 30 years.
Satair is also one of the world’s largest aviation battery distributors, representing the top five battery manufacturers – ACME, Concorde, Hawker Enersys, Marathon Norco Aerospace and Saft – serving some 180 customers like international scheduled airlines, charter carriers, large low-cost airlines and regional airlines to MRO companies, helicopter owners, business jets and private aircraft owners.
Chief Executive Officer of Satair A/S Dennmark, Bart Reijen, said in a speech prior the ribbon cutting that the company basically didn’t have any choice not to make this move because "since 2011, in six following years we were growing by 150 percent what is a real success story" adding "as we do not believe that after seven fat years, seven sat years will come ... we continue to invest".
The increased warehousing and workshop space at Space Waye gives opportunities for expanded capabilities according to Jon Ravenhall, Managing Director Satair UK and Head of Operations Repair Europe (UK), who said: “It is also our intention to widen the scope of our offering to the market. Being a key part of the Operations Repair Group within Satair, we plan to offer electrically-based product repairs, particularly for Airbus proprietary parts. We are working very closely with our Satair and Airbus colleagues in determining a wide range of stocked parts all of which have significant UK demand and we have a development plan for this year and 2019 for both warehousing and repairs.”
Currently Satair services some 7,500 aircraft batteries a year making it one of the world’s largest commercial aircraft battery servicing operations. The radically increased warehousing and workshop space at Space Waye allowed Satair to expand the battery repair and overhaul shop. All of the 14 staff previously employed at Heston have moved to Space Waye and have made significant contributions to the design, layout and functionality of the new facility. Additional six new employees have been recruited both for warehousing and repair operations and the business has started a battery technician apprenticeship scheme through the Way2Work initiative with the first apprentice now engaged. Additional staff is envisaged in 2019.
Besides being a distribution hub for spares and a battery servicing operation, the Space Waye facility also has expanded office space and being so close to Heathrow it can be used as a convenient meeting location for Airbus, Satair, customers and suppliers.
