PROFILE
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AUTOS KY
He believes that staff morale has been boosted over the past three years as more openings have arisen from an increase in outside work.
Today about 70% of the workshop's work comes from outside the airport.
Autosky could hardly be better placed to bid for servicing work — there are around 5,000 vehicles on the air side of Gatwick Airport, says Plent.
The company has recently won maintenance contracts with Drinkwater Sabey, American Airlines, lnterflight and British Car Contracts. Most of the servicing and repair work is carried out in the company's 2,800m workshop at night to minimise operator downtime.
More than 80% of the respraying work is for third parties, including British Gas, Redland Brick, Booker Fitch and Gatwick Handling. The British Gas contract is for repairing and servicing 80 vehicles over three years.
Autosky has just signed a deal with Dorking-based Johnston Engineering to refinish and paint its road sweepers, which are based mainly on Iveco Ford chassis. Plent says he will be disappointed if Autosky does not finish at least 70 sweepers a year through the contract.
"By diversifying our business with both airport and non airport-based companies we have been able to maintain a strong position in the marketplace," he says. The workshop alone turns over £1.6m — Elm of which comes from outside businesses.
Plent is hoping to strengthen the workshop business further by buying some chassis straightening jigs to cope with major repair work.
He is also looking at investing in an artic with a roller bed trailer to join the fleet of 18 artics. The rest of the £3m fleet comprises two and three-axle rigids, electric vehicles, mobile cranes and snow clearing units — all of which are available for hire with or without drivers.
Autosky runs four trucks on ad hoc air cargo business between Gatwick and Heathrow airports and occasionally picks up cargo from customers' premises to take to Gatwick. Most trips are within an 80km (50 mile) radius, Plent does not intend to expand the haulage service as competition is fierce in Autosky's neighbourhood: "Haulage rates are suicidal in this area because there are so many small owner-drivers here," he explains.
There is a lot more scope to expand the seven-vehicle coaching business.
By next July Plent plans to buy two high-specification coaches and in the longer term he aims to "multiply the fleet many-fold". The investment can be justified by a 40% increase in the coach business in the 12 months to the end of March this year.
Most of the coach work involves transporting air passengers from the airport to their hotels, but the division also operates to the Continent. Autosky's coach fleet, which ranges from minibuses to full-length units, is also available for private charter.
The haulage and coaching business have a combined turnover of £340,000.
Autosky's fuel bunkering service is also profitable: it brought in a cool £400,000 last year.
About 83% of the derv, gas, oil and petrol it has delivered is destined for third-party operators: it currently has 48 account customers on its books.
Work on the airport ranges from snow-clearing to moving stranded aircraft. To clear the airport of snow is the equivalent of clearing a 65km, six-lane motorway. To put it another way, a 15mm snowfall on the runway represents about 5,000 tonnes to be shifted.
Autosky is not the first successful privatisation programme Plent has been involved in: he joined the airport from Brighton Borough Transport, one of seven PCV operators already privatised. Plent helped turn it around from a £500,000 deficit to a £400,000 profit in the two years he spent there as deputy managing director and director of operations.
Plent believes that other public-authority-run firms have the potential to become more enterprising. if the Conservative Party wins the next general election, 38 bus companies, 25 provincial airports and 54 ports are likely to be taken down the privatisation path: Prime Minister John Major is believed to have instructed that a Municipal Privatisation Bill should be introduced immediately after a Conservative victory. LI by Juliet Parish