AirLiance Materials To Move To New Headquarters Facility; Will Also Open Sales & Sales Support Center This Summer

CHICAGO, IL (April 24, 2006) – AirLiance Materials has announced today that it is in the process of moving its operations into two new locations: a state-of-the-art headquarters, sales, customer support and fulfillment facility in Chicago and an additional sales and customer support facility in Jupiter, Florida.  The Florida facility is scheduled to go on-line in November and the headquarters facility is slated to begin operations in September.

 According to David Sisson, CEO of AirLiance, both the headquarters move and new facility addition was necessitated by the company’s consistent growth over the last six years.  The company has reported double-digit growth year over year since 2002. Sisson noted that, “As we’ve become more of an integral supply chain partner to our customers, we’ve seen a growing requirement from those customers for greater off-the-shelf support on a wide range of fleets.  Concurrently, we’ve seen the need for greater and more ‘specialized’ program and inventory provisioning strategies and support.  He added, “By expanding our operations into interdependent centers, we’re confident that we’ll be in a better position to meet our customers’ future needs and help them further improve efficiencies over time.”

One of the main benefits of moving its headquarters and warehousing facility to a new, specially modified facility (it remains in the Chicago area just minutes from O’Hare International Airport) is a significant gain in space efficiency.  The new multi-million dollar facility, which has 161,000 sq. ft. of warehouse space, is being equipped with high density stocking capability that will increase the company’s available space for stocking support by nearly 35%.  Serving as the fulfillment center for AirLiance’s global operations, the headquarters facility will link 100% of its certified and ready-to-ship inventory to its industry leading e-commerce system, allowing customers true visibility into exactly what is on the company’s shelf any given minute 24/7.  Currently the world’s leading airlines utilize AirLiance to meet a number of parts provisioning challenges, ranging from AOGs to long-term fleet-specific provisioning strategies. 

The new Florida based facility will enlarge the sales and sourcing organization and will initially focus its efforts on engine products and services. Headed up by AirLiance COO Roscoe Musselwhite, the Jupiter, Florida based facility will concentrate on further developing the company’s offerings in support of virtually all engines commonly flown on regional, standard, and wide body aircraft.  In addition to strengthening the organization’s support of engine parts and regional sales activities, the new facility will also be involved in developing a whole asset acquisition and disposition portfolio to enhance core supply chain strategies.

According to Mr. Musselwhite, “The move of certain engine, sales and customer support operations to a new dedicated facility was primarily motivated by our growth, but the move also underscores our commitment to meeting the increasingly complex needs of our customers.  By enhancing our core competencies in the four key areas: customer support, engines, airframes, and fulfillment, we’ll be able to accelerate our organization’s efforts in reaching greater and greater efficiencies for our customers.  In short, we’re moving to more specialized services and increased customer support backed by more in-depth off-the-shelf availability.”

Created for airlines, by airlines, AirLiance Materials is the exclusive supplier of high-quality, traceable, surplus parts from three operators to the global air transport industry. The company
offers a wide range of supply chain related aircraft products and services for its customer airlines and maintenance repair organizations.  These products and services include material sales, sourcing, repair management services, parts exchanges, parts kitting, AOG and Just-In-Time services.  AirLiance operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Currently Headquartered at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, the company will move to new facilities in the summer of 2006.  The company offers its products and services through an international network of offices around the world and their e-commerce site www.airliance.com.

For more information, contact Michael King at King Group: (p) 805.462.3000, e-mail: mking@kinggroup.com, or Kimberly Miller at AirLiance Materials: (p) 847.233.5828, e-mail: kimberly.miller@airliance.com.