KEY POINTS:
Simon Smith has some great work stories. Like the time he had to organise 20 tonnes of equipment from Sir Elton John's 2006 Wellington concert to be hauled from the capital to the Royal New Zealand Air Force base at Ohakea and loaded into two Boeing 727s by
6am the next morning. Ohakea was the destination because it was the only runway long enough to handle that takeoff weight and the deadline was 6am because the pilots had other flights to make.
Thanks to Smith's cool-headed co-ordination of planes, trucks and loading muscle (he convinced the Army that a non-military operation of this size would be a good training exercise), the job was done by 3am.
Since then, Smith, who is logistics manager for Skylink, a subsidiary of aviation company Airwork Flight Operations, has been asked to organise a number of logistically tough assignments, although none have yet beaten that job.
His story highlights the "can do" attitude that has driven Airwork Flight Operations and parent company Airwork Holdings to become one of the country's most respected private aviation companies.
It's an attitude that keeps customers such as Brisbane-based Alliance Airlines happy.
Airwork operates four Boeing 737s in Australia via a joint venture with Toll Holdings subsidiary Toll Priorities. Alliance relies on Airwork to help out when it is short of planes due to unscheduled maintenance or the ad hoc charters it does for the Australian military and mining companies.
Jobs can come up with only a few hours' warning and having a reliable replacement service is important for the airline and its customers, says Alliance managing director Scott McMillan.
"If we've got that aircraft on the ground instead of moving people to and from the mine it has an impact on their productivity and doesn't engender great relationships between us and our customers."
Airwork has generally flown under the radar since majority owner Hugh Jones and an unnamed business partner bought it in 1984. The firm's strategy has been "low-key and cost-effective", says business development manager Wayne Christie.
"We're not ostentatious, we don't have a big flash building."
It's difficult to tell how big the company is: it won't say how many aircraft it owns, just that it "owns and/or operates" 40 of them. However, Christie confirmed that it did own "some" Boeings and helicopters.
What's no secret is that aviation is a tough industry; operating costs, such as fuel, landing fees and maintenance are high, and there's also the challenge of attracting and keeping qualified staff.
A trained pilot and former freight manager for now-defunct airline Origin Pacific, Christie says a boss once told him that "aviation is a great business to go broke slowly in".
Airwork's diverse income streams have helped it survive the competitive local market, he says. The company aims to secure long-term contracts with blue-chip customers and avoid exposure to the vagaries of the retail market.
Christie sees big potential in outsourcing maintenance globally and points to figures from airline manufacturer Boeing that predict huge growth in the Southeast Asian market.
Boeing says air travel within Southeast Asia will grow by 6 per cent a year over the next 20 years, above the world average growth rate of 5 per cent, and that airlines in the region will need 1930 more planes during that period.
The company's progress hasn't been completely turbulence-free. Airwork had to close flights between the tiny Micronesian island of Palau and Brisbane due, it is understood, to financial issues on the part of the Palau Government.
In 2004, the company failed in an attempt to start a charter service to Fiji with Flight Centre.
More recently, Airwork lost its search-and-rescue contract in January after the Auckland Rescue Helicopter Trust bought a helicopter and found another operator.
And, in 2005, an Airwork Metroliner carrying NZ Post courier cargo between Auckland and Blenheim crashed 5km from Stratford, killing the two pilots.
The company has three divisions: Airwork Flight Operations, which operates a fleet of 15 aircraft and is based at Auckland International Airport; Heli Holdings, which "owns and/or operates" 25 helicopters and has contracts with government agencies, mining and oil companies and tourism operators, and is based at Mechanics Bay on Auckland's waterfront; and Airwork New Zealand, the company's highly respected maintenance division.
Airwork Flight Operations' biggest cargo contract is with NZ Post, a service called Air Post that Airwork runs in a joint venture with courier companies Express Courier and DHL. The cargo plane, a Boeing 737-200 QC, flies the freight by night and passengers by day (the QC stands for "quick change" - between passenger seats and cargo containers).
Airwork Flight Operations organised transport to and from games for the Lions rugby team in 2005.
Heli Holdings' major contract is to supply and fly helicopters for the police, which it has been doing since 1988.
Airwork New Zealand, which is the company's core business, has workshops at Ardmore Airport, Mt Cook, Timaru and Queenstown, and has local and international customers for its extremely specialised overhaul and repair work.
The workshops also design and install specific equipment such as winches, seats and stretchers, and recently manufactured its own testing equipment to test the winches used on emergency helicopters.
Because the maintenance division is the company's "bread and butter", says Christie, having enough qualified engineers onsite is paramount.
So stringent are the aviation safety rules that a plane wouldn't be allowed to fly if, say, the toilet light wasn't working.
The company would hardly be recognised by its founders, the Brazier family, who set it up in 1936 and ran a top-dressing service from Feilding.
When Jones bought in, Airwork had 15 staff and operated only fixed-wing aircraft (as opposed to helicopters). Now it has 200 staff over its three divisions.
With such growth it's not surprising there has been the odd takeover attempt. Christie won't elaborate but says that several offers have been made in the past.
In 2006, director and minor shareholder, former Tranz Rail chief financial officer Wayne Collins, raised the idea of a float but it went no further.
Air force
Airwork Holdings has three divisions:
* Airwork NZ (maintenance).
* Airwork Flight Operations.
* Heli Holdings.
Airwork Flight Operations operates a fleet of 15 aircraft:
* In Australia, four Boeing 737-300s flying freight services.
* In Europe, one Boeing 737-300.
* In New Zealand, one Boeing 737-200 QC, three Friendships, five Metroliners (two of which are air ambulances), one Piper Chieftain.