Courtesy / C&L Aviation Group
Chris Kilgour
Updated: August 24, 2021
Bangor aviation firm sees growing demand for customized, high-end aircraft interiors
Courtesy / C&L Aviation Group
C&L Aviation Group in Bangor has grown its facilities and workforce tenfold in 10 years and is seeing increasing demand for custom interiors. Here, members of the C&L avionics team install and check LED cabin lighting where overhead bins used to be.
A Bangor company with offices in Australia and Europe, C&L Aviation Group, specializes in servicing, maintaining and supporting operators in the corporate and regional aviation industry.
The company offers aircraft and engine sales and leasing, parts support, heavy maintenance, interior refurbishment, aircraft teardown, disassembly services and aircraft management.
Four years ago, C&L and its in-house engineering group began producing custom interior upgrades and conversions. A recent project for Embraer, a Brazilian aerospace manufacturer, included structural modifications for the business-class seating arrangement on a regional jet produced by Embraer called the ERJ 135.
The job called for decreasing the number of seats from 37 to 16, providing more space for passengers. To do that, the C&L team leveled the cabin floor, shifted the aisle from an offset to center position, expanded the aisle, and relocated seat tracks. The company also improved the galley to increase beverage capacity. Other such projects are in the pipeline.
C&L was founded by Chris Kilgour in his basement in Brisbane, Australia. He moved the company to Bangor in 2010 after acquiring Telford Aviation Services, a company that had been operating commercial aircraft maintenance and repair facilities at Bangor International Airport but was slated to close.
Since then, C&L has grown considerably.
We asked Kilgour, a 2013 Mainebiz Next List honoree, about the company’s expansion into custom interiors and the company’s overall growth. Here’s an edited transcript.
Mainebiz: How has the custom interiors part of your business unfolded?
Chris Kilgour: We got into it about four years ago. We had done a little bit before that. Now that people see what we’re doing, we’ve been inundated with inquiries. We’re booked out a long way for this work. We employed another 15 people in the last two months and we’re looking to employ another 20 or so to help us to keep up with all the work.
MB: Why are interior upgrades and conversions in demand?
CK: One obvious reason is COVID. I think people are looking at the way they travel and want more space. Also, I think airlines are looking for smaller aircraft for shorter routes. People increasingly want to fly point-to-point, rather than go through a big hub or even go through a major airport. So a lot of operators are operating from smaller, private terminals. There’s a wave of this going on and I think it will get more popular as it gets more difficult to get through security.
MB: You saw increasing demand before COVID as well. Why was that?
CK: I think people are just looking for a nicer experience. And some of the bigger airlines were pulling out of some routes, which opened up some smaller markets.
MB: What kind of problems are clients asking you to solve?
CK: We’ve had demand over the last few years to develop what is becoming known in the industry as ‘semi-private travel,’ which means upgrading the aircraft to have fewer seats, more space and a higher level of comfort and finish.
With the ERJ 135, we put in 16 first-class seats. In order to do that, we modified it to a semi-private cabin environment. At the same time, we upgraded all of the interior panels, put in LED lighting and wifi, upgraded the bathrooms and installed power to the seats and a sound system.
MB: How much have you grown the company since 2010?
CK: In 2010, we only had 20,000 square feet. Now we have about 200,000 square feet.
We have three building projects going on at the moment. We just completed construction of a 27,000-square-foot parts warehouse. Last year, we purchased [defunct event venue] Spectacular Event Center, near the airport, and converted that to our components shop, where we work on smaller aircraft components. We’re building a new interiors shop that’s a 12,000-square-foot stand-alone building, which should be finished by the end of 2021. And we’re building an add-on to one of our hangars for storage, of about 5,000 square feet.
We’re also upgrading our corporate aircraft hangar, to make it look nicer and to have new offices. That will be completed by the end of this year as well.
Ten years ago, we had just a handful of customers, worked on two or three smaller aircraft at a time, and had about 20 employees. Now we work on 12 aircraft at a time and have a bit over 200 people. We went from $10 million to $70 million in turnover.
MB: How do you find clients?
CK: Between the parts and maintenance business, we have about 18 sales and business development people. We have offices England, Europe, Singapore, Australia and Florida, so they’re out there drumming up business. We’ve ramped up our online presence, social media and press releases, and we display at the big conferences to demonstrate our products. We have a lot of inquiries at the moment.
MB: What does employee recruitment look like?
CK: We have a full-time recruiter who recruits experienced people from all over the country. I’m a big believer in having a good place to work. We’ve worked on that and word is getting out. We advertise online and through social media and get referrals from current employees. We work with airframe and powerplant training schools to recruit their graduates. And we have a registered apprenticeship program with Maine Department of Labor; we take on two intakes per year of six people each, so 12 people per year. We’ve been doing that about three years.
MB: When you bought the Bangor facility in 2010, were you planning for this level of growth?
CK: No. I had a parts company and I was buying an aircraft that was parked here in Bangor. I got to talking with the director of maintenance here and found Telford Aviation Services was going to close down. I flew over from Australia, did a deal to buy Telford, and really just wanted a hangar where we could put our aircraft. But the business grew and grew. Six years ago, we built a new facility on the other side of airport. We then took over more and more hangars. And we’re planning to grow more.
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Anonymous
August 25, 2021
Telford Aviation was a successful Maine aviation company sold in 2010 to a Milwaukee based operator. The company had aircraft maintenance facilities in various states and overseas. The new owners opted to sell the smaller Bangor-based general aviation services division to C&L Aerospace which since has greatly expanded activities in the commercial aviation services sector. The company has become a true asset to the local Maine economy and should serve as an example of Maine's international business opportunities.
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