WILMINGTON — A Delta Air Lines plane brought good news to Wilmington Wednesday when Airborne Maintenance and Engineering Services (AMES) President Brady Templeton disembarked and announced the creation of about 200 jobs at the air park.
Templeton told AMES employees, as well as state, local and several companies’ officials, that a five-year heavy maintenance contract with Delta Air Lines was signed, including a three-year contract for work on Boeing 717 aircraft.
AMES maintains, repairs and overhauls aircraft.
Templeton said it would create about 150 direct jobs and 50 support jobs.
AMES would be working on more than 80 aircraft over three years and would soon have three in a hangar at one time, Templeton said. He added that the recent construction of a hangar, made possible with help from local and state governments, allowed AMES to pursue a multi-line project.
Templeton and other officials present praised AMES’ employees as the reason that companies like Delta Air Lines are drawn to the air park.
“To move this company forward, it’s all about you folks,” said Joe Hete, president of Air Transport Services Group, AMES’ parent company.
Since DHL left the Wilmington Air Park, Hete said, ATSG and its subsidiaries have created more than 500 jobs in Wilmington, about half of which were created by AMES.
That, and the recent “Aerosmith project” have met with great results, according to Hete, for customers, the community, shareholders and employees.
Gary Stover, president of LGSTX Services Inc., which handles the Aerosmith project, said the project has created 62 jobs thus far.
Stover also compared the air park’s history to a phoenix, the mythological bird reborn from its own ashes.
“We’re back,” Stover said. “We’re going to rock it.”
Reach Nathan Kraatz at 937-382-2574, ext. 2510 or on Twitter @NathanKraatz.
