Oct. 20--COLONIE -- Albany International Airport officials are hoping to land the aircraft maintenance center of a New Mexico-based manufacturer of small jet aircraft after State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, R-Brunswick, announced he's providing $1.5 million in taxpayer money to help the project along.
The announcement came one day after Commutair, a regional airline, said it was scaling back its own maintenance operations at Albany.
Airport officials are close to a deal with Albuquerque, N.M.-based Eclipse Aviation, which is looking for seven sites nationwide to provide factory maintenance for its new twin-engine, six-seat jet. The small jet is undergoing flight testing, and Eclipse spokesman Andrew Broom said the company expects it to be certified by March 31, 2006.
Albany would be the third maintenance site. Broom said sites are already planned in Albuquerque, where Eclipse also will manufacture the planes, and in Gainesville, Fla.
"We are creating a product support network that is going to be unrivaled in the aviation industry," he said.
Broom said the Northeast factory service center will likely be the largest, with at least 30 employees, based on the number of customers in this part of the country who have signed up to buy the plane. Worldwide, Eclipse has 2,300 orders, he said, with about 10 percent of those overseas.
Wages in Gainesville were reported to average $50,000 annually, and a company spokesman said employees in the Northeast factory center likely would see similar wage levels, adjusted for living costs.
The current list price is about $1.3 million, so those orders represent nearly $3 billion in sales.
Eclipse plans to produce 260 jets in its first year after certification, ramping up to 880 jets in the second year and 1,000 or more each year after that, said Broom. That would quickly make it one of the most popular small jets in the market. Cessna, by comparison, took 35 years to produce 3,000 jets, Broom said.
Invitations have been sent out for an event Tuesday morning at the airport that includes Bruno. "There's the potential for something next Tuesday," said Broom, but he said negotiations are still continuing with airport officials. "At this point ... we remain optimistic they will select Albany," said Mark Hansen, a spokesman for Bruno.
"We'd be most pleased to have Eclipse Aviation locate at Albany International Airport," said airport spokesman Doug Myers.
Landing Eclipse might also offset the loss of mechanics' jobs as Plattsburgh-based Commutair shifts more of its maintenance work to its headquarters in a move to save money. Commutair is coping with fuel prices that have tripled in less than two years, its president said this week.
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