Panus soars on airline fleet expansion

"Around 200 Airbus A380s will be delivered to airlines in the next two years. Meanwhile, Malaysia's low-cost airline AirAsia is ordering new Airbus A320s, while India is expanding its airports. These factors will boost the unit's revenue to Bt500 million next year from the forecast Bt150 million this year," Theerarath Juthamanee, director of the unit, said last week.

The unit produces tractors, including its Bliss Fox F1-500 model, which are designed to tow sizeable aircraft like the world's largest passenger plane, the Airbus A380.

Eighty per cent of the unit's total revenue comes from overseas. Its foreign customers include Singapore Airlines, Qantas, Japan Airlines, British Airways, AirAsia and Philippine Airlines. Its major local customers are Thai Airways International and Bangkok Airways.

The unit makes equipment ranging from aircraft-refuellers and hi-loader trucks to pallet dollies.

The Bliss Fox brand towing tractors are produced by a joint venture with Australian manufacturer Bliss-Fox.

Panus recently purchased new machines worth Bt50 million and set up a plant in its factory complex in Chon Buri as part of capacity expansion to serve growth in the ground-support equipment market.

Panus expects its total revenues next year to jump by 40 per cent to Bt2 billion from Bt1.4 billion expected this year.

The ground-support equipment unit contributes 40 per cent to Panus' total revenue, with the rest from the production of trailers, semi-trailers for transportation and logistics, pre-fabrication and speciality equipment.

Tassana Kanrat, director of business development, said the company planned to boost the revenue proportion of ground-support equipment to 50 per cent.

The company will also introduce NGV trailers to the local market, he said.