DUBAI—Mature-aircraft trader and lessor Vallair will explore location options for its planned Saudi Arabia operation next month and expects a training school will be the first of the operations to be set up in the country.
Last November at the Dubai Airshow, the company announced a memorandum of understanding with Saudi Arabia’s government-led National Industrial Development Center (NIDC), set up to develop five key sectors in the country while driving exports overseas.
The NIDC will help guide Vallair as it looks to establish a footprint in the country, with the fully operational business incorporating narrowbody MRO, aircraft disassembly, component repair shops, aircraft painting and full training functions.
Gregoire Lebigot, CEO of France-headquartered Vallair, says while the project remains in the planning phase, he envisages the facility being set up outside of the major two cities of Riyadh and Jeddah. He is scheduled to visit Saudi Arabia in April to view two possible locations for the site.
No set timeline was disclosed for the start of the operation, but Lebigot says it will be established in phases involving Vallair and three partners: First, the NIDC, followed by a local airport authority cluster and a local investor to become a shareholder in the joint venture.
The first footprint to be established will likely be a planned training school at the site, which Lebigot says can be set up relatively quickly given it will be an extension of Vallair's existing training approvals. He says Vallair is targeting a late 2024 start date for the training venture.
Once it commences operation, Lebigot envisages the Saudi Arabian business emulating its base in Chateauroux in central France. “We want to duplicate the ecosystem we have in Chateauroux in Saudi Arabia,” he says. “Chateauroux is a huge airport where we can store aircraft, and generally doing this [storing aircraft] doesn’t fit well with busy passenger airports.”
He adds that any new site will need capacity to store high volumes of aircraft while offering services which complement Saudi Arabia's aviation infrastructure. He does not see the Saudi Arabia JV as a direct competitor to domestic MROs such as Saudia Technic.
Lebigot says Vallair had previously come close to setting up a business in the Middle East, having explored the United Arab Emirates as a location some years ago, but the project did not reach its completion. He now believes the time is right to establish a footprint in Saudi Arabia, citing the country’s ambitious aircraft fleet expansion and investment in an aviation infrastructure including MRO capability.
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