Brazil-based TAM Executive Aviation, official representative of Beechcraft, Cessna and Bell as well as of FlightSafety, has opened a new service centre for executive aircraft at Santa Genoveva airport in Goiânia.

This is TAM's first base in the Brazilian Midwest, with a strategic location that facilitates the service of aircraft from the region itself as well as those coming from more distant regions, including the north and northeast of the country. With this, TAM Executive Aviation increases its maintenance service capacity and expands its hubs beyond the already established bases in Belo Horizonte and Jundiaí, the latter being the largest service centre for executive aircraft in Latin America.

“This new service centre is very important, as it is located in a strategic region for the country's economic development, with a strong pillar of serving agribusiness entrepreneurs who use aircraft as work equipment on their journeys. And TAM sees great potential for expanding the support of Textron aircraft in the region,” says service centre director Wellington Amorim.

Maintenance is one of the company's main business units and has been undergoing rapid growth particularly over the last two years. Among the most in demand services are specialised ones such as upgrades, installations, complete painting and interior design. The company also provides the sale of parts and repair of components for several Brazilian workshops.

TAM was the largest exhibitor at the recent LABACE expo, where it celebrated 40 years of partnership with Cessna and Beechcraft manufacturer Textron Aviation.

“This long and solid relationship is a source of great pride for us at TAM as it highlights one of our pillars, which is the long term relationship with partners, suppliers, customers and employees. It also exemplifies how committed we are to the development of the sector, and committed to offering the best and most advanced business aviation in the world to the domestic market. This is a goal also shared by Textron, which puts us on the same path and has sustained this successful partnership for 40 years,” says TAM president Leonardo Fiuza.

TAM took nine piston aircraft, turboprops, jets and helicopters to the event; among the high tech and advanced models were two older ladies, classic single engine aircraft from the 50s and 60s, one of them the original Cessna 195 that belonged to company founder Commander Rolim. The display included a single engine Cessna 180; a Grand Caravan EX and King Air 360 turboprops; a Citation M2, Citation CJ3+ and Citation Latitude jets; and Bell 407 and Bell 429 helicopters.

“We are very excited about the return of LABACE, as in addition to being the largest expo in the sector in the country, it is the starting point for the realisation and creation of many new businesses. Expectations are high, even more so this year when the market is heated,” says Fiuza. “We have aircraft scheduled for delivery in 18 or even 24 months. We also recorded a significant increase in charter and maintenance sales, and our expectation is to expand these numbers even further in 2022.”

“It's great to be back in-person again and highlight some of our latest product investments at the first LABACE since 2019,” adds Textron Aviation vice president of sales for Latin America Marcelo Moreira. “The Latin American market is very important to Textron as our aircraft account for more than half of the turbine fleet in the region. Our leadership is based on our commitment to designing, building and supporting the best aircraft in the industry. We're also pleased to have the opportunity this week to celebrate our four decade relationship with TAM Aviacao Executiva. This is a relationship that has been beneficial to both companies, and we look forward to many more years of success together.”

Textron has more than 3,100 turbine aircraft based in the region, including over 1,200 jets and 1,900 turboprops. Demand for new aircraft remains strong, especially in Brazil. Throughout the past five years, more than 250 Textron aircraft have been delivered in the region. Last year one quarter of all Textron turboprop deliveries went to Latin America, while 46 per cent of all jets based in the region are Textron jets.

Recently, the company achieved two global certifications, IS-BAH and IS-BAO, becoming the only executive aviation company in the country to have both IBAC awards. It also signed a new partnership with AEG Fuels.

“We recently partnered with AEG Fuels through the AEG Connect programme and became part of the select group of partners in the AEG Connect family, which is undoubtedly a great recognition of our work as one of the biggest and best Brazilian FBOs,” says director of air and FBO services Heron Nobre.

Brazil has continental dimensions and commercial flights do not reach the entire country, so TAM is seeing demand for charter flights grow every day. Its fleet management market was already growing before the pandemic, and has continued to grow since.

“This is a great time for customers to place their aircraft under our management, as they can certainly count on the safety and convenience of having an aircraft operated by us. We also believe that this may be a market trend that will continue for the next few years, as our customers are increasingly concerned with the core business of their respective companies and want to optimise their flights and assets, such as the executive aircraft,” he concludes.