Despite the prevailing market headwinds, AMS was busy acquiring and remarketing aircraft, and performing aircraft inspections, records audits, lease returns and deliveries worldwide during 2021.
AMS acquired a total of twenty-one aircraft for its clients during the calendar year – these included B747-400 factory freighters, BCF freighters, Combi aircraft, B747-400 Pax aircraft (for modification to “preighters”) and related engines. The company is looking to acquire additional aircraft in 2022. In addition, the company sold two B737-800 aircraft for P2F conversion and is actively remarketing a pair of A330-300 aircraft on behalf of their owners.
In addition to the technical work generated through acquisitions, AMS managed the technical service needs of parent company, EastMerchant. This included the sale & leaseback of two B787-10 and one A350-900 with Singapore Airlines; the redelivery, off lease, of two A330-300 aircraft in Southeast Asia; and assorted routine mid-lease inspections. For third party clients AMS managed the delivery of an A330-300 and the appraisal of numerous corporate aircraft, for financiers and investors, in locations across Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the United States.
AMS also last year participated in a number of varied and interesting consulting projects, most notably partnering with engineering consultancy Arcadis to provide technical due diligence to Jefferies and their clients, Rolls-Royce and Babcock, in the divestment of their respective stakes in AirTanker Holdings (“AirTanker”). AirTanker owns a fleet of fourteen A330 ‘MRTT’ Voyager aircraft which it operates on behalf of the UK MOD.
Looking ahead to 2022, Graeme Shanks, Head of Marketing at AMS comments that “without doubt the presence of Coronovirus has required companies, working in the aviation industry, to adapt and rethink how they interact with their clients to provide services which are relevant. AMS has done this successfully in 2021 and is confident it can continue to do so in 2022.”