Aviation painting firm folds

Two years ago, Aviation Painting Services expected to be expanding now. Instead it will be closing its doors on Wednesday,

The company was hailed as a great success when it opened its $3 million facility at Hamilton Airport's Ingram Rd in December 2011.

As the only certified and purpose-built aircraft painting operation in New Zealand initial demand for its services was huge.

Four months into operation it had painted 15 turbo-prop passenger and commercial aircraft, light planes and helicopters. It had also painted two Air New Zealand Eagle Air B1900s, and had another in the pipelines. It had work booked in until the end of 2013, and twenty staff were employed in the building, with 15 contractors on call. APS had to turn away work on larger aircraft because its 32m by 32m painting booth was not big enough.

At the time director Phil Hanrahan said the company had earmarked land for a $10m expansion in 2014 so it could work on bigger aircraft. The goal for expansion was to attract work from around the Pacific. New Zealand Trade and Enterprise had part funded the venture through funding given to the Waikato Aviation Cluster.

However, Hanrahan confirmed the company would close up this week.

"Initially there was a fair bit of work. But in the last two years there has been less and less," he said.

"There were a couple of other factors.

"We were disappointed over the lack of support from the CAA [Civil Aviation Authority]."

He said the other factor was aircraft were being painted in non-certified facilities which were "much cheaper and we can't compete."

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Aviation painting firm folds