Dublin: April 27th 2022: MAAS Aviation, recognised expert in aircraft painting, has enhanced its senior management team with the appointment of industry authority, Andrew Hoad to its board of directors.  Hoad brings with him valuable airline technical and leadership experience in all aspects of aircraft maintenance and operation, having held senior leadership roles at Cathay Pacific Airways and Haeco in Hong Kong, and more recently completing 14 years at Emirates Airline in Dubai. Hoad also currently holds non-executive directorship positions at Aerfin Ltd and TP Aerospace.  His role at MAAS Aviation will focus on operations, investment, strategy and airline engagement with an eye on contributing to the Company’s international growth in both its OEM and MRO business divisions.

“Good track record and reputation, excellent product quality, and a management team with a ‘can do’ attitude backed by a very supportive investment group were all obvious attractions for me to join MAAS Aviation,” says Hoad. “The leadership team is embarking on exciting future development plans, and it is a great opportunity to be a part of that journey.”

Tim Macdougald, CEO – MAAS Aviation, believes that Hoad will bring a valuable balance of  knowledge and ideas to the Board. “Having previously held senior technical positions in two prestigious airlines and two large MROs, each with their own in-house paint facilities, Andrew is very familiar with the technicalities of aircraft painting and understands the critical processes and the importance of meeting airlines’ and leasing companies’ expectation of performance and quality in regards to aircraft appearance.”

Hoad observes that capitalising on some of the opportunities that will inevitably arise as the aviation sector exits the ‘COVID era’ will no doubt be a challenge.  “We will be positioning the business to fully align with the rebound of both OEM and MRO driven business combined with identification and delivery of many other best-fit options to support the continued and structured expansion of the business. Continuing to create value for our customers will of course remain a priority even as we face the current strong headwind of global inflationary pressures.”

Macdougald goes on to say, “We consider ourselves to be up there with the best in our industry. We operate well established processes and systems and in addition to delivering industry leading standards of performance in aircraft painting we also possess in-house expertise in paint shop design, project management, fitout & commissioning. We intend deploying these areas of expertise to deliver on an ambitious growth plan and COVID-19 has not dampened this ambition as we are currently exploring a variety of expansion opportunities with renowned partners to deliver world-class services across a wider global footprint.

“The continued growth of MAAS Aviation is a good news story and we anticipate that with Andrew’s guidance and experience we can pursue our growth strategy with vigour. We will continue to invest in infrastructure, provided the investment can be supported by a credible business case.”

“Airlines continue to place huge emphasis on differentiating themselves through use of innovative cabin interior products and by having an equally innovative high quality external livery applied to their aircraft” summarises Hoad. “Consequently, there is now, more than ever, great value assigned by OEM and airline customers to being able to source a top-quality aircraft paint finish applied in the shortest possible down time. This is something that MAAS’ customer base of leading commercial short-haul airlines recognises only too well. Proximity to MRO facilities (as is the case at our Kaunas, Lithuania facility) make it a convenient, attractive, and cost-effective proposition for airlines and leasing companies to combine heavy maintenance and painting into one grounding at one location.

“Building and operating painting hangars that can efficiently and consistently deliver high-quality paint finishes requires a lot of specialist skill and knowledge, making the barrier to entry to this business type relatively high – MAAS Aviation has both the investors and the expertise – it’s an unbeatable combination.”