Friday, August 29, 2014

ProJet discontinues aircraft maintenance services at Leesburg Airport

ProJet Aviation announced Friday they are discontinuing commercial maintenance and repair operations (MRO) at Leesburg Executive Airport in order to focus on managed aircraft clients. The company plans to accommodate “emergency maintenance” requests for all Leesburg based and transient aircraft.

“This extremely difficult decision was made after almost two years of trying to turn around a shop that had struggled for years under previous ownership,” said Shye Gilad, CEO of Projet Aviation. In June 2012, Landmark Aviation sold all of its fixed base operator assets at Leesburg to ProJet.

“In no way is this a reflection of the hard work and commitment of our MRO team - despite their best efforts, the economics of operating the MRO at a large scale are simply not sustainable in the face of adverse external conditions,” Gilad said.

“We thank you for your business and regret that we will no longer be able to provide scheduled maintenance services,” Gilad said in an announcement to customers.

In 2012, Leesburg had 215 based aircraft and over 70,000 annual operations (takeoffs and landings). The airport is home to three flight schools in addition to a number of aeronautical service companies. Total employment at the airport is nearly 300.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...


Thanks, Keith for the opportunity to address this issue.

I can assure the Leesburg flying community that the Town has been aware of this issue and is working to address the problem. The Town is addressing the needs of our tenant operators in an immediate and aggressive fashion. We take this seriously - the needs of our based tenants come first, and we understand the need for both owner-operators and commercial flight school operations to have immediate, full-service maintenance. Although we were surprised by this announcement on Friday and disappointed in their unilateral action, I can't comment specifically on the legal and contractual issues that are now at the forefront because of ProJet’s decision.

The Town is meeting with ProJet on Tuesday morning and we expect to have a resolution in very short order.

Thanks,

Dennis

Dennis B. Boykin IV
Chairman
Leesburg Executive Airport Commission

Keith Stein said...

Thanks for the comments Dennis. Hope a resolution comes soon.