With the first converted MD-10 cargo plane slated to roll out of SR Technics Inc.’s Palmdale hangar next month, the company is poised to begin a new wave of local hiring.
This next wave will bring the 360-worker Palmdale operation up to 600 mechanics, engineers and other staff by the end of the year, on its way to 5,000 workers by 2005.
Armed with a contract reportedly worth more than $100 million, the company is staffing up to meet its obligation of converting 35 DC-10 passenger planes into MD-10 cargo planes for FedEx Corp. The deal includes an option for an additional 22 planes.
“We need more manpower to do it quicker,” said Alex Kugler, CEO of SR Technics, a subsidiary of SAirGroup (formerly SwissAir). “The objective here is to expand our business in the global market without shifting business from Switzerland.”
SAirGroup has its own maintenance and overhaul facility in Zurich.
In 1999, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration granted permission for DC-10s to be converted into “MD-10s,” a special designation created to refer to those converted models.
The instrument panel of the MD-10 is the same as that of an MD-11, the model which is built specifically for freight hauling.
“It is a very, very complex modification,” Kugler said of the DC-10 conversion. “I am very proud of what we achieved in seven months. This is a good base to build on our future.”
When the goal of 5,000 employees is reached, the firm expects to be able to work on as many as 12 planes simultaneously.
Conversion of a second FedEx plane began last month and is expected to be completed in July. SR Technics hopes to be able to cut that time to four and a half months.
In the years to come, the firm might seek business from Airbus Industrie, a European consortium that makes more planes than any company except Boeing Co.
In the meantime, SR Technics will focus its business on Boeing DC-10s, MD-11s, MD-80s, and 757.
Once the conversion and repair operations are running full steam, SR Technics plans to begin a general maintenance program for jets that have been in use at least five years.
SR Technics bought its two hangars and single-story workshop and office buildings from Boeing and leases the 150-acre parcel on which the buildings sit from Los Angeles World Airports.
It began operations last August with 190 employees.
