AE Aircraft Services eyes move to Moses Lake
MOSES LAKE — A Seattle-based aircraft maintenance and service company is looking to start operating in Moses Lake before the end of the year.
Larry Molina, maintenance manager for AE Aircraft Services, told commissioners overseeing the Port of Moses Lake that the company — which specializes in repair, maintenance and federal certification work on business and cargo jets — hopes to have approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to start operations at the Grant County International Airport by June or July of this year.
“Everyone is helpful and excited,” Molina said. “And we’re happy to bring in people that want to be part of it.”
Molina said AE, which is based at Boeing Field in Seattle and operates out of airports in Washington, Oregon, California, Colorado and Illinois, is also hoping to eventually build a hangar big enough to fit a Boeing 757 cargo jet, an aircraft AE specializes in maintaining and servicing.
AE Aviation also specializes in performing standard FAA aircraft checks on business and cargo jets, from the A check performed every 400-600 flight hours to the far more in-depth C check done every 20-24 months.
“We’d like to bring them here,” Molina told commissioners.
The company also hopes to build a new hangar right next to the GCIA main terminal, Molina said. The site is currently occupied by an old hangar the Port of Moses Lake intends to have demolished later this year at an estimated cost of around $600,000, according to Port Executive Director Don Kersey.
“We’re working with AeroTEC to do 757 work in their hangar while our hangar is constructed,” Molina said, adding that testing and certification company AeroTEC doesn’t have anyone on staff who can work on 757 cargo or passenger jets.
However, AeroTEC President and CEO Lee Human later told the Columbia Basin Herald AeroTEC does not have a relationship with AE Aviation and does have people on staff who are qualified to work on Boeing 757 aircraft.
“We are not partnering with them,” Human said
One concern is the state of the ramp — the aircraft parking area — in front of where AE Aircraft would like to operate. When Delta Airlines used that portion of old and pockmarked concrete, it had to tow the aircraft in and out because the potential for concrete debris posed a danger to aircraft.
Kersey said the Port hopes to redo that portion of the ramp at some point in the future for an estimated cost of roughly $10 million.
While AE will start its Moses Lake operations with two employees — more as needed will drive or fly in from Seattle — Molina said AE’s goal is to expand both its business in Moses Lake and provide more opportunities for other aviation service providers like Columbia Pacific Aviation and Million Air.
“We’re not here to take business from anyone,” he said.
Molina said AE is setting up shop in Moses Lake because of the cost of doing business in Seattle.
“Seattle is too expensive and too busy,” he said, noting that AE currently pays $11,000 per month to share an aircraft hangar at Boeing that is roughly half the size of what the company wants to build in Moses Lake.
Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com
CLARIFICATION: An added comment clarifying AE Aviation's relationship with local organization AeroTEC was received after publication and is appended above.
About AE Aviation Services:
AE Aviation Services employs 15-18 people who specialize in the repair and maintenance of small and medium-sized business jets, including versions of the Boeing 737 and 757 cargo planes. The company has operations at:
- Boeing Field in Seattle.
- Hillsboro Airport in Hillsboro, Ore., where the company was started.
- Spokane.
- Portland, Ore.
- Van Nuys, Calif.
- Pueblo, Colo.
- East Alton, Ill., where the FAA has a major inspection center at the St. Louis Regional Airport.