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Deal would have meant 400 new jobs

TIA hangar deal off: Pemco bows out; it would have meant 400 new jobs.

By STEVE HUETTEL, Times Staff Writer
Published December 4, 2007

An aircraft maintenance company has backed away from plans to bring a satellite operation to Tampa International Airport that would have employed 400 workers within two years.

Pemco World Air Services of Dothan, Ala., failed to meet a deadline last month to lease a huge hangar abandoned by US Airways in 2003.

The company expected to win a contract to perform scheduled maintenance in Tampa for a proposed customer that's now looking for a cheaper deal in Latin America, said Kevin Casey, vice president of marketing and business development. Pemco hopes to land enough new business at some point to lease the hangar, large enough to fit a twin-aisle Boeing 767 and two narrow body 727s at the same time.

"But in the absence of customer commitments, the last thing we want to do on a speculative basis is take on additional fixed costs," Casey said Monday.

Airport officials tried to attract a tenant for the hangar for years. But airlines have increasingly shifted scheduled aircraft maintenance work to lower cost vendors like Pemco and shuttered their own facilities. Delta Air Lines also closed a hangar at Tampa International in 2005.

"It's difficult finding a tenant," said Louis Miller, the airport's executive director. "There's not a lot of demand for facilities of that size."

He was thrilled last summer when two suitors made bids for the US Airways hangar. Pemco proposed to start working on planes this month with 130 employees, including mechanics earning an average of $18 an hour and inspectors at $20.50. More than 400 locals would be on the payroll by December 2009, the company said.

Pemco was growing fast, with customers including Southwest Airlines and Northwest Airlines, and was running out of room at its home in Dothan. The company had recruited in Tampa, where US Airways and Delta eliminated a combined 600 maintenance jobs.

Also in the hunt was Astar Air Cargo Holdings, a Miami aircraft leasing company that flies jets for cargo giant DHL. The company wanted to move its overnight maintenance base from Orlando and launch scheduled heavy maintenance business that would employ 400 workers by 2010. There weren't followup discussions after Pemco got the go-ahead.

On Miller's recommendation, the Hillsborough County Aviation Authority board in July awarded Pemco exclusive rights for two months to negotiate a lease.

In less than a month, the agency drafted a contract. But the deal was delayed as Pemco's parent tried to spin off the company from its military aircraft business. Private equity firm Sun Capital Partners bought Pemco in September.

The airport waited on Pemco until the end of October, then wrote the company a letter asking where the deal stood. Pemco's attorney responded that "due to recent changes in customer commitments," the company couldn't sign the lease. Casey, the business development vice president, declined to identify the customer.

Steve Huettel can be reached at huettel@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3384.

[Last modified December 3, 2007, 23:43:42]