Thai lifeline for aircraft firm

By FIONA ROTHERHAM

Hamilton-based aviation company Pacific Aerospace hopes to avert further job losses through a new aircraft order from the Royal Thai Airforce.

But it could be up to a year before the Thais have the money to make the order.

Pacific Aerospace is about to sign off this week an initial $US12 million order for the supply of 12 Airtrainer CT4s. The last aircraft was delivered last week.

General manager Graeme Polley said Pacific Aerospace had staff in Thailand negotiating a potential order for more aircraft.

It laid off 30 workers in March following a big restructuring, and spending $1 million on high-tech equipment that cut the number of tradespeople required.

The 40-year-old company warned then that further job losses might come at the end of the Thai contract.

Mr Polley now hopes to stave off the redundancies after also picking up some extra work for Boeing in Australia.

Thai military attache Group Captain Kanit Suwannate said from Canberra that the Air Force might want a further 13 of the CT4 Airtrainers to replace the airforce's CT4A planes, bought 25 years ago.

He said budget constraints meant a new order was unlikely in the next year. However, he said, if the ageing planes did not perform to standard in that time, they might have to be replaced earlier.

"We would then need to reshuffle the money to procure the new ones."