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Exclusive Interview: Execujet MRO Services is all set to launch the new facility at Dubai South’s Al Maktoum International Airport (OMDW). The state of the art new MRO facility has been designed to accommodate nearly 20+ business jets simultaneously. Mr.Nick Weber, Regional Vice President Middle East, Execujet MRO Services in an interaction with Aviation World, Managing Editor,Vishal Kashyap share more inputs on this new MRO facility and this is going to reinforce Dubai’s status as an important centre for aviation MRO services. Excerpts of the interview… Kindly share with us details about the new MRO facility in Dubai in terms of infrastructure, technology, approvals, etc.? We designed our new MRO centre at Dubai’s Al Maktoum International Airport (DWC) to meet projected growth in business aviation in the Middle East region. The hangar can handle 18-24 mid-size to large business jets simultaneously, including the very largest Dassault business jets such as Falcon 6X and Falcon 10X. The new MRO centre is spread over 15,350 m2 and is replete with a larger hangar, back offices, training facilities and spare parts storage rooms. The new hangar specifically, has 8,300 m2 of floor space, about 1200 m2 more than the hangar space at our old facility at Dubai International Airport (DXB).A key difference is our operations at DWC will all be under one roof, as opposed to being split between two hangars as they were at DXB. There is also an additional 3100m2 of workshops that will expand our MRO capabilities. We already have workshops for wheel and brakes, batteries, avionics, etc. However, with more space we can expand the capabilities even further. The facility will also become ExecuJet’s new Middle East headquarters in Dubai while the company will still retain AOG capability at Dubai International Airport (DXB). What are the new capabilities that ExecuJet MRO Services ME will focus upon? ExecuJet MRO Services Middle East is a multi-OEM facility and supports many types of Dassault, Bombardier, Embraer, and Hawker business jets. In the region, we also work with cabin interior specialists, F/List, to provide cabin refurbishment services in response to customer demand. We look forward to adding new aircraft types, such as Falcon 6X and later on, the Falcon 10X to our repertoire. To prepare for entry into service of the Falcon 6X, we have been acquiring tooling and spare parts for the aircraft. We are sending a total four engineers for maintenance training on the Falcon 6X, a new aircraft type which is due to be certified and enter into service during this year. As more business jets enter the region, we will continue to expand our MRO capability by investing in tooling and training as demand dictates. What’s the vision behind the launch of the facility and its potential impact in the region? To support the growth of the commercial aviation as well as business aviation, the authorities in Dubai decided business aviation in time, should migrate to DWC. We saw the strategic initiative as an opportunity for us to grow and to build a large purpose-built facility. We were already familiar with DWC because even though we have had a line and heavy maintenance facilities at DXB since 2006. We had established a line maintenance station at DWC back in June 2013. The availability of space at DWC is an attractive proposition for ExecuJet MRO Services Middle East. With a larger facility, we will expand our capabilities including adding new aircraft types. We will also generate more employment. With the launch of our new facility, we plan to increase our workforce from around 150 to 200 by 2028. The new employees will also include fresh graduate’s on boarded via our internship programme that gives local students hands-on aircraft maintenance experience. How do you foresee the state of business aviation and MRO services sector in general? When the pandemic took hold globally in early 2020, all segments of the aviation industry were adversely affected. But the business aviation sector started recovering in 2020’s second half, certainly much quicker than commercial aviation. Many high net worth individuals and business people turned to business aviation to meet their travel needs. Flying on a business jet – as compared to being on a commercial airliner – means you come in contact with fewer people. Business aviation has always provided travellers with greater convenience and flexibility. Numerous market reports indicate that the vast majority of those who migrated to business aviation during pandemic continue to fly on business jets. The continued demand for business aircraft is leading to demand for business aviation MRO activities.The business aviation aircraft manufactures have large order backlogs and will continue to deliver those aircraft and future orders. Meanwhile, we are continuing to see strong demand for pre-owned aircraft. Transactions involving pre-owned aircraft create a lot of work for MRO businesses. Aircraft owners will often put the aircraft through a heavy maintenance check before selling, so as to garner a higher sale price for their aircraft. Meanwhile, buyers of pre-owned aircraft will often want to have some work done on aircraft upon delivery, such as change the livery as well as upgrades to the cabin interiors. Your views on Indian business aviation both in terms of growth and volume of business? India is the second largest market in Asia for business jets with a fleet of around 150 aircraft, according to Global Sky Research. Last year the fleet grew by around 7%. The industry anticipates that India’s business aviation market will continue to grow 5-10% per year which is quite strong growth considering India is already the second largest business aviation market in Asia. Demand in India is for both the very large, long-range business jets as well as the super mid-size aircraft. India has many large conglomerates with businesses overseas, so their executives need a convenient mode of international transport. There is also strong demand for mid-size aircraft because many Indian companies have businesses in tier-two and tier-three cities in India where the airport infrastructure may be inadequate to

The world is moving toward sustainability and the target is to achieve net zero emission by 2050. The global transport and logistics company, Kuehne+Nagel recently hosted first-of-its-kind sustainability event in Pune, India to highlight the initiatives taken toward achieving this goal. Mr. Marcel Fujike, Global Head of Products & Development, Air Logistics, Kuehne+Nagel talks to Vishal Kashyap, Managing Editor, Aviation World more on this. Excerpts from the interaction… Brief us about the recent sustainable event that was held in Pune,India. We had our first-ever sustainability event hosted in Pune for our customers across industries giving them an overview of sustainability, global emissions, and initiatives Kuehne+Nagel has taken across the globe. What is the goal &objectives of Kuehne+Nagel towards sustainability? At Kuehne+Nagel we have two major pillars inside our forum that are guiding us and leading our way. The first is the strategy that we recently announced in March 2023 at the Analyst Day in London where we clearly defined our core area in ESG (Environment Source and Governance) towards sustainability. The second is our vision for sustainability by 2030. We are working towards becoming the most trusted supply chain partner for a sustainable future. The second pillar is Science Based Targets and Initiatives (SBTI). Every year there is a climate change conference happening and in 2015 there was a climate change conference by the United Nations in Paris where great insight within various countries to eliminate global warming by 2050 to 1.5 degrees was shared. Now the question is what does that mean ‘up to 1.5 degrees?’ If we break it down to the companies,we get just the degrees figure, therefore we limit global warming basically up to 1.5 degrees. Hence, the SBTI is translating 1.5 degrees into absolute figures. We became science-based targets in 2021 and then we decided on our targets in mid-last year to become carbon neutral by 2050. Last year, we had 14.2 million tons of CO2e. Our emissions need to be reduced by 33 % by 2030 (against the 2019 baseline) and by 2050 it is our aim to have net zero emissions. While we will still have emissions that cannot be avoided but will compensate them with carbon capture i.e., active carbon removal – not offsetting. 2050 is set as the deadline to achieve net zero carbon emissions. What does that exactly mean? Net zero means we are still on one side of emissions and on the other side these emissions are reduced or brought to zero by active carbon capture. So, carbon capture means that there will be technologies out there that will help to remove carbon from the atmosphere. What are the specific steps that you are taking to curb pollution created in the logistics sector, especially in India? There is only one earth. Whatever we do in India impacts us globally, therefore as an organisation, we are not focusing on single countries. But all the measures we are taking are implemented globally. We are concentrating on our activities for global solutions first and then we have local-specific solutions. So, if we round this to India and we are looking into electric vehicles, warehousing, energy-powering sources, and solar energy. We have started now putting solar panels on the roofs of all our warehouses and offices and over the next two years,100% per cent of our electricity supply would be coming from renewable energy sources (wind, solar, water). End of last year, we stood at 85 % of the power coming from renewable energy. We have local initiatives running to implement sustainability actions in local Kuehne+Nagel departments and we take on activities supporting the care for the environment in local communities/countries as well. When you look at the larger picture of emissions unfortunately 98% of the emissions are indirect emissions globally like our airlines, shipping, truckers etc. and these are emissions that we are tackling. Globally in the next 10-15 years, we need to have biofuels which means we are actively promoting and investing in innovations as well as promoting the use of existing use of sustainable aviation fuel. What are the pertinent challenges that you see in the process of sustainability? Let’s take air freight as an example where we have three challenges in reducing the usage of carbon emissions. The first challenge is the awareness or knowledge of the industry. Because only a handful of carriers and partner airlines are up to speed on sustainability. This is taking a lot of time to educate and develop the concerned skills. The same is true for customers who are now moving in this direction. The second challenge we are looking into is the airside and the ability to ascertain aviation fuel because it is making emissions as the aircraft only has a life cycle of 40-50 years. Therefore, it will take some time until the first new technologies hit us and then really gives us any impact. Currently, the volume of bio fuel worldwide is very little and it’s insufficient to have an impact. The price of Sustainable Aviation Fuel is also 2 to 3 times higher than the existing Aviation Turbine Fuel due to several reasons like manufacturing and transportation etc. From India’s perspective don’t you think airlines are reluctant to adapt to Biofuel or SAF as that might impact their operational cost? With the support from the Indian govt, we can use SAF for airlines to become more carbon friendly.Methods like subsidising,incentivizing, or putting on mandates by DGCA that airlines need to have one per cent of SAF will help. The tricky part now is we have a limited access to SAF in India,but that can always be sourced from other countries like Singapore. What are the goals for the reduction in carbon emissions and future investments? The targets are set by SBTI and as mentioned by 2030 we need to save 33% of our total emissions which means 5.5 million tonnes of reduction of indirect emissions and by 2050 we have net zero emissions. The investment we are doing