NSW Premier Mike Baird is on the Central Coast today to announce a new aircraft manufacturing facility that will establish in the region and create a new aerospace industry and subindustries in Australia.

Premier Baird said that Amphibian Aerospace Industries will relocate its off-shore manufacturing to the Central Coast and become the first transport category aircraft manufacturer to set up in Australia since the 1940s.

It will create 240 direct jobs in aircraft manufacturing, as well as thousands of indirect jobs in auxiliary industries like parts supply, instrumentation, interior fitouts and avionics.

“This is a great day for the Central Coast – this announcement means thousands of jobs for the region with a significant flow on to the Central Coast economy,” Premier Baird said.

“The decision by AAI to locate here is a testament that NSW is Australia’s prime location for business growth and investment.”

Council Administrator Ian Reynolds said the announcement was the culmination of over 12 months of negotiations between AAI and Central Coast Council staff.

“Bringing jobs to this region and enabling employment growth are some of the key priorities of Central Coast Council. There were a number of locations that AAI were investigating and we’re pleased to have successfully attracted AAI to the Central Coast,” Mr Reynolds said.

AAI is the Type Certificate holder to the HU-16 Models A-E and G-111 Albatross Amphibian Aircraft and will move its operations from the USA to a site at Central Coast Airport under a 40 year lease.

Amphibian Aircraft Group President Khoa Hoang said they will invest $100 million in building the manufacturing facility at Central Coast Airport to upgrade the Albatross with new Turboprop Engines, state of the art Full Glass Avionics Cockpit and some additional comfort features for its customers worldwide.

“We could do this from numerous countries in the world but chose Australia because there is great available aviation engineering talent, we have support from the government and it is a stable political and legal environment,” he said.

“It just made good sense to us to choose the Central Coast. It’s close to Sydney and Newcastle, it’s in a great location and it offers our employees a great lifestyle.”

While some employees will come from aviation-skilled backgrounds and move to the Coast, there will still be plenty of jobs for the local community.

“About 70 percent of our employees will be sourced locally for trades, production lines, panel beating, upholstery, distribution, parts sorting, warehousing, inventory, maintenance, administration and finance.”

Council Administrator Ian Reynolds said the lease agreement with AAI is part of a wider vision to make the Airport a hub for light to medium commercial general aviation.

“Having an anchor tenant like AAI at Central Coast Airport will help put our region on the aviation industry map,” Mr Reynolds said.

“It will stimulate the Central Coast to become nationally recognised and help in attracting additional investment from related industries and innovators and growing our economy.

“Central Coast Airport can cater for a wide range of general aviation activity with the runway at its current width and length.”

Mr Hoang said his company would use Central Coast Airport minimally for aircraft testing and that there is no requirement to change the runway to accommodate this.

He said there is significant international demand for the Albatross amphibious aircraft type which can land on water, snow or land.

“It is suitable for humanitarian aid, surveillance, search and rescue, detect and interject operations, passenger transport and utility functions in outer reach islands and other remote places around the world where airports are not viable.”

The process to get AAI up and running on the Central Coast will be staged over three to five years.  AAI will be required to submit a Development Application and go through all the relevant planning processes for the facility which is on industrial zoned land.

In early 2016, Amphibian Aircraft Technologies Pty Ltd, a fully incorporated subsidiary of the Amphibian Aircraft Group received a Research and Development Certification (for both local and overseas activities) with AusIndustries which Mr Hoang said has assisted greatly in making the decision to move to Australia.

General aviation uses include air charter, tourism, corporate jets, emergency services, search and rescue, angel flights, parachuting and other uses.