Magnetic MRO, a global provider of Total Technical Care for aircraft operators and lessors, is proud to announce that the company is one of the partners of the Estonian Aviation Cluster, which introduced itself to the public for the first time in Tallinn Airport on Wednesday, April 24th. The Cluster was created in the hope of joining Estonian aviation enterprises and organisations via collaboration, to have a say in the creation of the national aviation strategy, and to increase the attractiveness of Estonia as an aviation country for foreign investors. At the press morning that took place in the VIP Terminal of Tallinn Airport, the activities and the mission of the Aviation Cluster, being comprised of 13 partners, were introduced to the journalists by Kristo Reinsalu as the Director of Estonian Aviation Cluster, Risto Mäeots as the CEO of Magnetic MRO, Eero Pärgmäe as the Commercial Director of Tallinn Airport, and Taivo Linnamägi as the Head of the Aviation and Maritime Department of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications. “Aviation is a rising industry: it is much more than just direct connections and passenger flights. In collaboration with the government, we create an aviation strategy for Estonia. We will also put Estonia on the European map of aviation clusters,” remarked the Cluster’s Director Kristo Reinsalu. “The Cluster joins enterprises active in aviation’s value chain from the Airport and the flight operators to the companies providing various services in the fields of maintenance, IT, logistics and transportation, and tourism. Currently, aviation provides 3% of Estonian GDP, which is twice as high as the added value created in Estonian forestry. The Cluster helps increase the aviation’s contribution to at least 5% of the GDP.” Eero Pärgmäe, the Commercial Director of Tallinn Airport noted that in addition to the work done to market Estonia as an aviation country, the Cluster could also help its partners by supporting their growth ambitions, and brought an example of the plan to extend the Airport’s infrastructure. “We believe that Estonia has a great potential to have its say in the aviation market, and the development plans that we have prepared in the Airport are very clearly related to the growth of that field.” According to Risto Mäeots, the CEO of Magnetic MRO, a company active in the field of all-round servicing of commercial aircraft, the Cluster is necessary already for the purpose of collaborating towards long-term sustainability of Estonian aviation business. Mäeots highlighted that the government’s support is very important in large international procurements and several valuable investments have been lost due to its absence. “There was a large procurement recently, where an Airbus plant was looking for a place to start producing composite elements. The result was that the production was moved to Demark. It was a large procurement and there were simply no participants from Estonia. Participating and not winning in a procurement is understandable. But the fact that we didn’t even know about the procurement – that’s criminally bad.” Estonian Aviation Cluster, founded this year, joins enterprises related to the aviation’s value chain and having in common a wish to collaborate in the development of aviation as an industry at both the national and the international level. The Aviation Cluster includes Tallinn Airport, Tallinn Airport GH, Nordic Aviation Grupp, Magnetic MRO, Fort Aero, Axinom Eesti, Airest, NA Advisory, Pakker Avio, Skeleton Technologies, Operose Labs, Nordic Aircraft Service, Ospentos International, and Threod Systems.