When it comes to ATR aircrafts only the manufacturer knows the plane better than the Danish service company he legacy of Technics is the story of ambition that Skyways Technics one day will enter successful entrepreneurship, a fall into the the defense market, the CEO adds. T abyss and the rise from the ashes. Only a few years after the Second World War a pilot A changing business in the city of Sønderborg in southern Maintenance & Repairs and Spare Parts are the founded Cimber Air, originally flying passengers to business areas of Skyways Technics and they share West Germany. As the company expanded so did the an equal part of the company’s turnover. The cus- airplanes, and in the last part of the past century tomers are mostly like Air France and SAS Cimber Air became one of Europe’s largest opera- but that will change since the business model tors of the French/Italian ATR aircrafts. is changing fast, according to Benjamin Nielsen: - A few years ago only a fraction of our customers A new beginning were aircraft leasing companies, but now it is one In the long run Cimber Air couldn’t keep up with the fifth of our sales and that share is rising rapidly. I big, European airlines and ended its operations in won’t be surprised if ten years from now the vast 2011, but that didn’t end the aerospace activities in majority of our customers will be leasing companies, the Hangar at Sønderborg Airport. CEO Benjamin since airlines are moving swiftly from aircraft- Nielsen explains: owners to aircraft-operators. - Three days after Cimber Air ended its operations I The biggest leasing customer of Skyways Technics is was contacted by the key stockholder. He asked me the Denmark based , the to develop a business plan for the service part of world’s largest leasing company in the regional jet/ Cimber and he obviously liked what he saw: He turboprop market. bought the hangar, all the spare parts, took over all the commitments in the service contracts and soon Global expansion after 75 of the former Cimber employees and I were The airline industry is a global business and Sky- ready to go to work in Skyways Technics. ways Technics is determined to expand the business outside Denmark. In 2015 the company opened a Service and Repair Center in Kuala Lumpur: - Asian air travel is booming at a pace hard to be-  Skyways Technics is doing MRO on aircrafts from 12 airlines and 3 leasing companies lieve and since our opening in Malaysia, Skyways  Exports is 98 pct., Asia/Pacific and Europe being the largest Technics have experienced tremendous growth. We markets are 15 people out there and are bringing new people  Approved for MRO on 14 aircrafts and 5 engines onboard as we speak, says the company’s CEO Ben-  150 employees, 130 based in Denmark jamin Nielsen.  63 pct. revenue growth since the start in 2012 A year after opening in Kuala Lumpur a sales office in Dubai were added to the Skyway Technics global footprint and later this year Fort Lauderdale will ATR experts join together with the opening of an in-house service Skyways Technics were born as ATR experts. Not center in Ukraine. only did Cimber Air operate the aircraft, the service unit also did ATR service for numerous customers all over Europe and most of the employees had more than a generation of experience in doing mainte- nance and repairs on the aircraft type. The Airbus/ Leonardo aircraft is not the only one rolling into the hangar of Skyway Technics though, ten pct. of the business comes from doing service on regional and business jets from Bombardier. – Bombardier jets are also used by air forces, among them the Royal Danish Air Force, and it is my firm