CRS Jet Spares has been an exhibitor at NBAA for nearly three decades, and as the Florida-based component exchange provider acknowledges its 35th anniversary here at the show, the celebration is bittersweet, as it lost its company founder, president and CEO Armando Leighton Jr., in April after a brief illness.

At a young age, Leighton became the purchasing manager for an airline and learned the rotating component system, which he soon realized did not exist on the same scale, if at all, in the business aviation industry. At that time, 1982, most parts came directly from the OEM, and Leighton saw a business opportunity. He used approximately $1,000 in savings to establish a business known as Corporate Rotable & Supply out of his mother’s garage.

“The business started on that premise: to provide the customers of the business aviation community with a cost-effective high-quality alternative to the OEMs,” said Jack Caloras, the company’s vice president of sales and development. He described Leighton as one of the pioneers of this business model. “In the business aviation world, it really was in its infancy, if anything,” he told AIN. “You send your good part, they send the bad one back, you send it for overhaul and you put it back on your shelf, and you have it ready to go for the next time.”

In the early 1990s, the company’s growth spurred Leighton to relocate to a 40,000-sq-ft headquarters in Fort Lauderdale (which also houses Thrust-Tech Aviation, CRS’s component refurbishment shop), and establish regional offices across the country for the West (California), Northeast (New York), Southwest (Texas) and Midwest (Ilinois). CRS also expanded to international sales, establishing locations in Mexico, London, Singapore and Brazil, with 30 percent of its business stemming from the international market.

Not a Maintenance Plan

“Our business is to focus on legacy, out-of-production, out-out-of-warranty aircraft,” noted Caloras, who described CRS as the opposite of a maintenance plan. “The people who go to those programs basically say, 'It’s easy, I know whatever breaks, I’m going to pay that amount of money per month, it doesn’t matter if it's more or less, kind of like an insurance policy.'”

He added, “We cater to people who are looking to possibly be more involved with their own maintenance programs as far as operations, whereas they’ll buy parts and pay for them when they need them.”

Before a part is approved for resale, it is fully refurbished by the OEM, by Thrust-Tech or by a select FAA-certified/EASA-approved repair station.

Caloras estimates the company’s current inventory of parts and components to be in the $50- to $60-million range. CRS (Booth N2704) is an approved supplier to Bombardier and Gulfstream, which allows the airframers not only to purchase directly from CRS, but also refer operators of their older business jets to the company. CRS also supports Falcons and Hawkers and it is considering adding Embraer coverage. “We have some customers that have those airframes that have asked us to get involved with some of the support,” said Caloras. “Another airframe people have asked about is the PC-12. There’s lot of them out there."

As operators of older aircraft approach major inspections or equipage mandates, they must decide whether the value proposition merits the expenditure of that much money on an aircraft whose value may be less than the cost of the maintenance event. “Where we come into play, and we’ve gotten much more involved in recent times, is to go to that owner and say, 'I think that asset is worth more to you in parts than it is as a whole,'” said Caloras, “'so what we can do is part it out for you.'”

Parting out aircraft has always been a major source of the company’s inventory, but Caloras has noted some recent changes. “As a privately owned company, financially it was a lot easier back in the day, when an aircraft cost a couple of hundred thousand dollars to buy to part out,” he explained. “Now you are talking about a lot more money for aircraft, especially if they are an aircraft that you would like to really get into, an ascending program, instead of a flat or descending program.” Under that paradigm, CRS has at times brought in financial backers to assist with the acquisition of certain aircraft. Once the aircraft has been picked clean, its carcass is then sold off to local recyclers, but according to Caloras, it isn’t worth much as mixed metal salvage. “Hopefully you’ll get enough money to buy your crew a nice dinner or lunch,” he said.