Magnetic Group, a Total Technical Care maintenance and asset management organisation, celebrates 20 years since the first C-Check was performed at the company's MRO centre in Tallinn, Estonia. Over the two decades, Magnetic Group's base maintenance evolved from microfilm-based operations to a high-tech, independent business line.
The first C-Check on Boeing 737-500 was performed in March 2002 at Tallinn International Airport (TLL) for Estonian Air, the national flag carrier that operated between 1991 and 2015. Back then, being an in-house maintenance department of the carrier, the team served Boeing 737 Classic and Fokker 50 aircraft, operated by Estonian Air and its Danish shareholder Maersk Air. But over the past twenty years, Magnetic Group's Base Maintenance grew firmly into an independent and innovative business with 20 195 sqm of modern MRO and painting facilities in Tallinn, and almost 60 customers from all across Europe, including SAS, Austrian Airlines, and Volotea.
However, although the expansion is evident, the main achievements are not about quantity, but quality, says Sergei Shkolnik, the Head of Magnetic Group's Base Maintenance. "First of all, I'm extremely proud of the team that evolved together with the market (and sometimes even ahead of it). It always was and still is vital for us to constantly develop both our professional skills and mindset – to not hold on to the past but reach for the future. Today, we have a team of 200+ solid, experienced professionals who not just complete set tasks, but solve problems."
Sergei adds that the evolution into an independent heavy maintenance provider required the transformation not only in the team's approach to the job but also in technological processes. "We started performing base maintenance tasks with aircraft manuals in hard copies and microfilms. Yes, imagine that – microfilms. There hardly were more than four or five computers and maybe, two printers for the whole unit. But today, we are using cloud solutions, smartphones, tablets, and other hardware and software – to some extent, today's aircraft engineers and technicians are also IT specialists. Thanks to new technologies, including those in the Non-Destructive Testing area, we can perform things that we couldn't even dream of 20 years ago," shared Sergei Shkolnik.
At the end of 2021, Magnetic Group's Base Maintenance hit its 700th C-Check. In the upcoming five years, the team plans to further expand its operations by 4 new bays and create at least 100 new jobs within Base Maintenance as well as additional workplaces for professionals within Logistics, Facilities and Tooling.
