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Happy To Wing It Again

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By TED JACKOVICS

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 2, 2008

TAMPA - Matt Dykeman had worked 10 years as an avionics inspector at the US Airways maintenance hangar at Tampa International Airport when the airline eliminated all 300 jobs at the facility two days before Thanksgiving 2002.

Three years later, Roy Carwile, an avionics supervisor at Delta Air Lines' hangar just north of the US Airways site, lost his job along with 350 others when Delta downsized the operation and eventually closed the hangar.

On Friday, Dykeman and Carwile formally celebrated a return to the aviation industry as employees of Alabama-based Pemco World Air Services. The company has taken over the former US Airways hangar as a heavy-maintenance facility for passenger and cargo aircraft and is hiring local skilled aviation workers.

"We went through a heck of a lot of heartache, but this is terrific," Dykeman said. More than half of Pemco's initial work force of 60 employees worked at the local Delta and US Airways operations.

Pemco officials declined to disclose average salaries for Tampa workers, but a previously released business plan said employees would be paid between $18 and $20 an hour. Pemco plans to expand its Tampa employment to about 400 workers within two years. It will pay the aviation authority rent that will increase from $105,719 for the remainder of 2008 to at least $407,634 by 2010.

The first project in Tampa is a 30-day maintenance project on a Gemini Air Cargo MD-11C, a cargo variant of the DC-10.

Pemco competes for maintenance projects that airlines in recent years have begun outsourcing to off-shore companies, in particular in Latin America. But Pemco stands to benefit from airlines increasingly giving up their own maintenance operations, CEO Wake Smith said.

Smith did not name potential airlines that might use its Tampa facility. Southwest and Northwest Airlines have been clients. But he said airlines using the Pemco Tampa facility could fly regularly scheduled flights before and after maintenance, compared with nonrevenue flights to maintenance facilities at airports they do not serve.

Reporter Ted Jackovics can be reached at (813) 259-7817 or tjackovics@tampatrib.com.

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