Pilatus reaches new heights: aircraft life extensions keep Pilatus busy around the dock.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: Thunder Bay

A plethora of heavy maintenance aviation work has been a boon for the Pilatus Centre Canada in Thunder Bay.

Since moving into a state-of-the-art sales and service shop on the north side of Thunder Bay International Airport in 2011, the company has expanded its workforce and evolved into a high volume shop running 24/7.

"When we moved over here four years ago, we had six fulltime maintenance guys on the floor," said Steve Davey, executive vice-president and COO of the Pilatus Centre. Now they've staffed up to 55 employees, including 39 maintenance personnel.

He attributes the growth spurt to the number of aircraft overhauls for owners of the PC-12 coming from both sides of the border.

The Pilatus Centre has the exclusive Canadian sales for Pilatus aircraft, but also handles the mandatory service calls related to maintenance work for PC-12 life extensions in Canada and the U.S.

"We worked with the factory starting eight years ago to develop this life extension service bulletin and today we're still the only factory dealer in the world that's authorized to perform them," said Davey.

The single-engine turbo prop is one of the more popular aircraft in North America and it's the primary aircraft they sell.

The aircraft's original design life limit is 20,000 hours, at which point it comes out of service for disassembly, inspection, and any necessary repairs being sent back into service for up to 50,000 hours. Davey co-owns the Pilatus Centre with business partner Robert Arnone, along with a spinoff aircraft management and charter company, Private Air, which employs 70 with aircraft stationed in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia.

Davey was with the company at its start in 1997, working inside a small 5,000-foot hangar with enough room for two PC-12s and five employees on the airport's south side. The office was an attached trailer.

A graduate of Confederation College's aircraft maintenance program and an alumnus of Austin Airways, Air Ontario and Kelner Airways (later Wasaya Airways), he worked alongside aviation legend Frank Kelner, who convinced Pilatus to establish a facility in Thunder Bay.

By 2001, they were in a 19,000-square-foot hangar with Wasaya before moving across the airport's main runway to the north side and their own exclusive 11,000-square-foot facility in 2011.

"We shared the building with Wasaya and used them for contract labour, but it wasn't the best for us," said Davey," we needed to focus purely on our customers."

The...