Business

Saturday March 7, 2009

Dnest plans to provide more on-the-job training for students

By RACHAEL KAM


CORPORATE and private aircraft maintenance company Dnest Aviation Services Sdn Bhd aims to provide more on-the-job training to college students and unemployed graduates in order to increase the number of well trained engineers in the aviation industry.

An industry veteran of over 20 years, the managing director of Dnest Aviation Services, Capt Earnest Koilpillai, or better known as Capt Earnest, is well aware the industry is facing a shortage of engineers, especially in the past few years.

Due to the rapid growth of local airlines, more aircraft have been bought, consequently leading to the need to hire a huge group of engineers in recent years, he explains.

“Now with the greater urgency to address the issue of unemployment due to the financial turmoil, we want to do more for society.

“This is not only to support the Government’s call to retrain laid-off workers, but also to train more talented people, especially unemployed graduates thus filling the vacuum of well trained engineers in the aviation industry,” he tells StarBizWeek.

Earnest says the company has been providing free on-the-job training to several colleges locally for the past two years.

Capt Earnest Koilpillai: We are thinking of starting engineering classes this year.

“We are thinking of starting engineering classes this year for individuals who have interest. So that in two to three years, there will be more trained engineers to fill the vacancies,” he says.

Recently, the company requested the Human Resources Ministry to introduce it to some unemployed graduates or laid-off workers who have interest in aviation, so that it can provide them with a two-month training course.

Dnest is a “fixed-base” operator that provides complete maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facilities to corporate and private aircraft. Its one-stop service centre, located at the old cargo complex of Subang Airport, provides services like hangarage, maintenance, management and operation of aircraft, ground handling of aircraft, custom and immigration assistance.

Currently, Dnest has three hangars with a total space of close to 100,000 sq ft parking area.

Its hangars can house up to 25 corporate and private jets.

“We are actually ‘full house’ now. I am eyeing another piece of land to build another hangar. he said adding that the company can fill up a new hangar in only six months.

“I am confident the new hangar will also be full in six months if I am given this piece of land,” says Earnest, formerly a pilot who served Royal Malaysian Air Force for 12 years and the Berjaya Group for 10 years.

Currently, 70% of the local corporate aircraft are using his hangars, and Dnest is seeing an increasing number of overseas clients, according to Earnest.

Major clients include Genting, Bombardier Aerospace, Executive Jet from Australia, AgustaWestland from Itali, Metrojet from Hong Kong, Macau Jet and few individual private jets.

Established in 1972, the Malacca-based company was previously known as Airfoto.

Its core business was initially in aerial photography, but it later ventured into aviation maintenance and management as well as aircraft sales.

Earnest took over the company and the business in 1985, and in 1996, he started the MRO operations aggressively and subsequently moved into the current head office building in 2002.

“Those days when I was flying corporate aircraft, I saw all local aircraft were very dependent on the service centre in Singapore.

“It made me to think of having the facility here in Malaysia to service local corporate and private jets.

“We have expertise here too and we can provide lower cost of maintenance with same if not better quality, so why not?” Earnest says.

The company started with a 24,000 sq ft hangar, then added a 16,000 sq ft and now runs a 50,000-sq ft hangar.

Last year, the company reported revenue of RM9mil compared with RM7.5mil in 2007.

In 2009, Earnest expects to achieve RM12mil in revenue, given that its third hangar is approaching the maximum occupancy of 12 aircraft.

The company, according to Earnest, is quite desperate to add a new hangar, for which it will allocate RM2mil.

Dnest has to date invested almost RM18mil on building hangars, maintenance and human resources.

“All our expansion costs were the company’s reinvestments and partly from our reserve funds,” Ernest says.

Because of that, Dnest has found it tough to get financing facilities as it has no borrowings record and also partly due to its three-year land tenure with Malaysia Airport Holdings Bhd (MAHB).

“Hopefully, MAHB will lease us another piece of land for further expansion and consider giving a longer tenure,” he says.

The short tenure may affect foreign investments in the company, Earnest says, adding that Dnest plans establish a joint venture with foreign specialist companies to set up a propeller-overhaul facility in Subang.

“This business still has a bright future as companies and some individuals see private jets as their business tool,” he says.

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