French company takes bizjets to the cleaners

By Thierry Dubois

November 16, 2008
Business Aviation, Cabin interior and electronics

Clean Jet Aviation (Stand No. 845), a French company that specializes in business jet cleaning, has opened a new base at Bahrain’s Manama Airport. The company said this may be the first of several operations in the Middle East and it claims to be the first in the region to offer comprehensive cleaning services for business jets.

“Clean Jet Bahrain started operations in July,” marketing and development manager Christophe Couret told MEBA Convention News. It is the majority partner in a joint venture with local-based International Aeronautical Technology. Couret explained that the company chose to locate in Bahrain because it is not as busy or crowded as Dubai, while still offering a viable base from which to launch its services in this part of the world.

In fact, one of Clean Jet’s current customers at Paris Le Bourget Airport is based at Manama, which has provided the company with a valuable introduction to the local market and a chance to start building contacts. “Customers here are very demanding in terms of quality and how the aircraft looks after cleaning. We have to prove ourselves,” Couret said.

With a company-wide work force of 21, Clean Jet has six employees in Bahrain, a figure it expects to grow to 10 next year. It also has six permanent employees at Paris Le Bourget and four in Nice–where they also serve the French Riviera locales of Cannes, le Castellet and Toulon. Another five are based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. In addition, the company sometimes hires additional temporary staff for difficult jobs: for example, it recently took 10 people three days to manually clean a VIP-configured Boeing 747-400.

For interior cleaning, Clean Jet employs processes that are dry or use very little liquid. In general, the company uses small amounts of chemicals for both interior and exterior cleaning and those they do use tend to be environmentally friendly, Couret claimed. Clean Jet’s fully equipped vans are available around the clock.

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