The next meeting of the NAALBF has been set for June 2-4, 2009 in Seattle, WA.  So take a few minutes now to get yourself registered for the Seattle meeting.   

When NAALBF had its first organizational meeting 16 years ago, we all thought that the forum was a great idea. And we were right. NAALBF started with just 6 airline members and reached at times as many as 42. Since then, we perfected the loan borrow practices and now, with the new website developed by Sterling Courier, we can get things moving even smoother.

Things were not always as easy as they are now, though. I remember the time when the AOG crises were resting entirely on the Airlines. The problems were easily handled when the spare parts were available at the airport where the plane was grounded. But, as you can imagine, such situations were scarce. More often, the parts were not there and the airline representatives had to get involved in a hectic process of finding them, arranging for pick-up, shipping, and delivery, before they could move on to finding another part to get the plane off the ground. And it was usually their own employees who were delivering the parts.

That’s when Sterling’s idea of AOG Aircraft Parts Shipping service was born. We knew that if we could coordinate the shipping process, Airline’s representatives would be able to focus on their important job-- finding the parts that they needed.

At that point, we were mostly involved in coordinating the transport between airlines and their vendors. It was Tom Lockner from UPS who first told me about the problems the airlines had with loaning and borrowing of aircraft parts. As the airlines started to look for ways to add a structure to the process by forming the loan/borrow forum, it was only natural for me to get involved.

Sterling became the first sponsor of the Forum and I, as a member of the Steering Committee, have been handling the event planning and sponsor relations to help facilitate all the NAALBF meetings. The new website developed by Sterling’s Marketing and IT teams is just another tribute to the great idea of the airline cooperation that we have been wholeheartedly supporting from the beginning.

So what’s next?

The engine and fleet type database. Soon, we will be able to search for the available parts and get the Aircraft On Ground contact information online in seconds.

Well, we've come a long way. And, it's just the beginning.