Ramenskoye bizav center to open soon

The International Center for Business Aviation at Ramenskoe airfield outside Moscow is preparing to welcome its first commercial customers. The project was launched 18 months ago by AVCOM Group. First AVCOM ironed out formalities like registering the land rent agreement and defining the site boundaries. After that, the company and contractors cleared the territory, laid over 1.5 km of asphalted roads to provide direct access to the site, and repaired 45,000 square meters of apron. Work has now been completed to erect two maintenance and storage hangars with a total area of 4,500 square meters, which can accommodate business jet sizes up to the Bombardier Challenger 850. “Subsidiary AVCOM-Technique has been successfully operating a bizav MRO center at the site since early 2015, providing quality repair and maintenance services on most aircraft types,” says Avcom Group President Eugeny Bakhtin. Ramenskoe airfield is currently undergoing a comprehensive runway and taxiway renovation to be able to receive civilian aircraft, both fixed- and rotary-wing types. “Our current objective is to complete separating the civilian sector of the airfield from the restricted experimental and flight testing area, which is controlled by Gromov Flight Research Institute,” Bakhtin says. AVCOM is planning to relax the restrictions in its sector by September 2015. After an approval is received from the Federal Air Transport Agency, the airfield will start supporting GA operations. Commercial bizav operations are expected to commence by year-end, following certification of AVCOM’s on-site security service. “We cannot say we are entirely happy with the pace and quality and construction: we have been forced to delay the launch of several auxiliary facilities,” Bakhtin notes. “Nevertheless, most of the facilities – the hangars, storage and maintenance premises – have been overhauled and successfully put into operation.” The Ramenskoe project is primarily aimed at operators owners of light and medium-sized fixed- and rotary-wing bizav and GA aircraft. The busy Moscow’s major airports have few available slots to offer to this category of business aviation.