Readjustments and a new strategy have been helping MENA Aerospace to weather the covid downturn and seize the opportunities that the pandemic has opened up.
MD and Founder Dr Mohamed Juman said the company’s focus over recent years had always been on the private jet industry and the MRO sector but this had changed as a result of the pandemic.
He explained: “Over the past year, with what has happened with Covid and readjustment within the aviation sector, we really had to readjust our own strategy. We want to still maintain our operations within the private jet sector so what we did was sign up an agreement between us and Sparfell, an Austrian based entity that has been working with us in the past. We found that allowed us to continue providing our clients, our customers, with the same and even a better level of service and we’ve seen that our revenue streams have been maintained in that sector.”
Changes in cargo and consumer behaviour create opportunities
Dr Juman said the changes in consumer behaviour and wider global market trends had enabled the company to move into different new sectors. MENA Aerospace has gained its air operator’s certificate (AOC) and made its move into the cargo market with a 737-300 plus another three 737-800 freighters to serve the Middle East market.
He added that MENA Aerospace would also shift its focus towards the growth areas of Saudi Arabia, Africa and southeast Asia. Dr Juman explained: “We see a huge growth in southeast Asia, for it to readjust to the American model of e-commerce, it is going to have to come up by at least a 400 or 500 per cent in the next few years. We are there to serve that market as well, so we’ve got a plan to move into southeast Asia AOC within the next year.”
Although the pandemic has caused major difficulties for the aviation industry, Dr Juman said it had also opened up opportunities. He explained: “I think all the opportunities with e-commerce and other results of the covid and the reorientation of a lot of the aviation sector will have a positive impact. The airline industry needed a shake-up – this is the shake-up that’s happening. We see another shake-up coming up on the cargo side where we want to be placed there because we want to be asset light and at the same time we want to be a play a disrupter role there. We want the customer to be able to book their own capacity on the flights directly without all the intermediary that’s where we are going.”
