Basic HTML Version
EDA Office of Foreign Trade • Riverside County, California • USA
July 2012
|
EXPORT
5
R
ather than listing all of
the countries in which IKHANA
Aircraft Services has done
business, it might seem easier to
name places where the company has
not had an impact.
Reciting just some of the Murrieta
company’s most recent business
transactions is like sticking pins on
a world map: Papua New Guinea,
Solomon Islands, Australia, Indonesia,
New Caledonia, Fiji, Maldives,
Argentina, Chile, Peru, Costa Rica,
Panama, France, the United Kingdom,
Canada.
“We have flags in our hangar of all the
countries we have been involved with,
and, frankly, I have lost count,” said
CEO John Zublin.
IKHANA, which is based at French
Valley Airport, enjoys a strong
position in the international
marketplace, with about 75 percent of
its output headed out of the country.
The company is a member of the
IKHANA Group, which specializes in
serving the aerospace industry.
“In our case, the international market
is something that comes with the
territory,” Zublin said. “There aren’t
many of us around that are our size.
In order for a company like ours to
succeed, you have to be somewhat
niche-oriented, and you have to be
able to expand geographically.”
That international work has had a big
impact on the home front. IKHANA
has about 80 employees, with about
75 percent of those at the French
Valley site and the rest in Van Nuys.
The company occupies about 45,000
square feet of space on about 7.5
acres at French Valley and maintains
another 10,000-square-foot facility in
Van Nuys.
The company anticipates increasing
its workforce by about 20 positions
in the coming weeks and intends to
increase its hangar space by about
12,000 square feet.
“The work is fairly labor intensive,
so we will be hiring people to do
that work,” IKHANA’s CFO, Marcos
Carvalhal, said. “We’re a small
business that is innovative, and we
have a product that we can export and
create jobs.”
IKHANA operates a U.S. Federal
Aviation Administration Repair
Station, which is also validated by
agencies in Europe, Canada and
Argentina. The company is especially
renowned for its work with the
DHC-6 Twin Otter aircraft and in
the modification of a wide variety
of aircraft for special missions
operations. With the DHC-6 Twin
Otter, they provide everything from
the refurbishing or Re-Lifing of older
airplanes to customization of factory
new aircraft for special uses. The
special missions aircraft they support
may include modifications for
mapping, surveillance, special cargo
or other unique requirements.
For example, the company has
modified more than 40 airplanes for
Grand Canyon Airlines, which utilizes
planes with enlarged windows for
sightseeing trips to the Grand Canyon
from two sites in Arizona and from
Las Vegas. It also works for US and
foreign governmental agencies as well
as companies and private individuals
who need aircraft modified for special
missions.
“We have an interesting mix,” Zublin
said. “Our customers range from
executives who have islands in
Honduras to the military to commuter
airlines to special missions to the U.S.
Army Golden Knights and the U.S. Air
Force Academy planes.”
The company was formed in 2006
by combining two other companies,
R.W. Martin Inc. of Murrieta and
Total Aircraft Services Inc. of Van
Nuys. Through that merger, “we have
established the ability to meet our
motto of design-build-fly, which is
fairly unusual for a company our size,”
Zublin said. “We have a very unique
niche.” Generally speaking, customers
bring their aircraft to IKHANA for
customized modifications or repairs.
But that work can take many forms.
For example, the company has been
refurbishing airplane wings since
1996 and recently completed its
100th set of wings. That also can
mean that a plane arrives at the ports
of Los Angeles/Long Beach in metal
containers, is shipped to Murrieta and
then ultimately is flown back to the
customer’s home base.
“Aircraft reach a certain point of time
when they are basically scrap metal,”
Zublin said. “We have a process in
which we rebuild them to ‘zero time,’
in which they are essentially new. We
have the FAA approvals to take an
airplane that you would essentially
cut in half and instead turn it into
a new aircraft. We call it a “re-life
process,’ which is unique to us.”
That process is especially attractive
given the cost of a new airplane
Zublin said. The “re-life” process cost
Aircraft Services Holds a
Strong Position in International
Marketplace!
Continued on pg. 6