West Air Sweden’s Technical Department is based at Lidkoping Hovby Airport, Sweden. It has expanded rapidly in order to keep up with the overall growth of the company. The 2,600 sq. metre purpose built extension to our already modern facility of 3,660 sq. metres incorporates new engine, prop, wheel and brakes workshops, 5 aircraft spaces in the hangars and a large sheet metal workshop. We now also have a spacious parts store and a very useful paint capability.

The training of aircraft engineers is crucial to further develop a team of qualified and experienced full time employees. West Air offers employment to persons with a basic education in aircraft mechanics, and brings them up to the level of "certifying staff"; thus providing them with a career in the industry.

The Base/Line station at Sturup/Malmoe/Sweden (approx. 2000 sq. metre) delivers maintenance back-up for the aircraft fleet, and our Line maintenance facilities at Arlanda-Stockholm/Sweden, Lulea/Sweden, Amsterdam/Holland, Paris/France, required by the operators. The most recent established Line maintenance facility is located at Gardermoen-Oslo/Norway, a facility that handles a large operation in Norway.

West Air Sweden Avionics Work shop is located in Malmoe/Sweden, where we have capability to repair and overhaul a number of parts for different aircraft types.

Now the wealth of knowledge and skill, pooled by West Air over the years of working with HS748 and BAe ATP, and proven through certification to deliver Line and Base maintenance for those types of aircraft could give an opportunity to develop a future for other types of modern Advanced Turbo Prop.

Today approximately 100 persons are working within the technical department that takes care of the aircraft all over Europe. Most of the employees are based in Lidkoping and Malmoe.

History of the Technical department
At the beginning of West Air Sweden’s history the maintenance of the company’s Piper Navajo and Beech 200 took place in the old ABAL Air hangar at Karlstad/Sweden airport.

In 1989 a second Piper Navajo was purchased in order to meet the demand from the Swedish Postal service on one hand and to cater for the increasing number of passengers on the other.

In 1990 the first Westwind IA1124 was delivered from Dallas and one year later the second arrived from Florida. The Westwind is the successor to the North American Rockwell Aero Commander 1121. At Karlstad/Sweden airport two hangars were now used and in order to keep a high dispatch reliability a company pick-up was used for AOG (Aircraft On Ground) situations. The necessity to have an organisation capable of handling all AOG situations 24 hours daily was very important for the maintenance department at West Air Sweden.

This was crucial in order to fulfil the company’s policy "To do everything in our power to meet customer satisfaction". West Air Sweden’s guideline.

Between 1995 and 1996 four Hawker Siddeley 748 were purchased. Since these aircraft were highly specialised, large modifications had to be performed. This was done initially at Hunting Aviation at East Midlands Airport in the UK.

As the aircraft were late in coming out from Hunting Aviation for production, we decided to do some of the modifications in-house in our own hangar facilities at Lidkoping Hovby Airport in Sweden.

In order to obtain the crucial knowledge of how to engineer these modifications and how to carry out routine maintenance of the HS 748 Canadian engineers were employed, being highly experienced on the aircraft type. Springtime of year 2000, the first BAe ATP with s/n 2022 was delivered to West Air Sweden. It was type accepted by the National Aviation Authority as a passenger aircraft, and later on transformed to a full freighter by the company. Several reliability modifications were also installed at this time, removing redundant passenger systems and allowing a full e-class to be installed. The first BAe ATP freighter flew commercially in the autumn of year 2000.

Between February and March 2001 flight tests were carried out in order to find out the aerodynamic characteristics of a large freight door installation in a BAe ATP. When the tests were completed and all data had been analysed the company, in conjunction with BAe Systems, started to convert aircraft with s/n 2021 to a large freight door aircraft. In July 2002 the conversion was completed and the first ATPF rolled out of the hangar in Lidkoping/Sweden.

In May 2001 a line station was set up at Sturup airport in Malmoe/Sweden. This was done in an attempt to separate the line maintenance from the base maintenance and also saving money on ferry flights, being situated closer to our European market. Another reason for the start up was the fact that West Air Sweden was growing and the lack of certifying staff was a limiting resource that was stopping the development within the technical department. As the station continuously grew the decision was made to start an avionics workshop in the hangar at Malmoe/Sweden airport. Thereby a large number of components could be repaired in-house and thus saving a lot of money.

The avionics engineers also completed a large number of modification upgrades on the ATP i.e. FMS-,TAWS-and Uni-link installations. Throughout the history of West Air Sweden it has been proven that a well organised and efficient maintenance organisation is highly beneficial for the company.

And, as the knowledge and the employees are steadily increasing, the maintenance department at West Air Sweden is, and will always be, ready to meet the challenges ahead.