Do you remember the year of 1989? The Berlin Wall was opened, foreboding the demise of the Warsaw Pact, George H W Bush was sworn in as the 41st president of the United States and the Finnish airline Kar-Air was the first airline to put the ATR-72 into service in October that year.
Yes, it was a long time ago. We know, as we have been accumulating aviation maintenance experience every day since then.
Täby Air Maintenance, TAM, was founded in 1989 and has over the years proven to be a world leader in third party maintenance for small- and medium sized airliners. Being an approved FAR- and EASA-repair station, TAM will meet any an airline’s technical needs, from regular maintenance to qualified repairs and rebuilds. Offering a variety of services, including qualified sheet metal and composite repairs for aircraft ranging from helicopters and biz-jets up to the size of the Boeing 767 and Airbus 330-families, TAM’s primary focus today is on regional airliners, being globally renowned as a specialist on the Saab 340/Saab 2000 turboprop airliners where a key to the on-going success is a longstanding, excellent relation to the aircraft manufacturer Saab. In April 2020, the line of work was expanded into the ATR family, with the first two major services and refurbishments carried out later that year.
Operating briefly as “Närkes Aeroservice”, TAM started in 1989 as a general aviation workshop in small hangar at Täby Örebro Airport. Already the year after, the current name was adopted and a few years later, business had developed in such a way that a move to the current workshops was necessary.
Between 2004 and 2010, TAM had a subsidiary – “Aeroservice” – specializing in helicopter repair and maintenance. Due to limited work floor space in Örebro, Aeroservice was localized to nearby Karlskoga. Gradually, however, as airliner work increasingly filled the days, the helicopter business was discontinued. Even if an occasional helicopter still can be seen in the workshops, fixed wing aircraft, airliners like the Saab 340 and Saab 2000, are today the core business; work ranging from major checks and rebuilds to an increasing number of high-tech full cargo-conversions of Saab 340A’s and –B’s.
Starting with a handful of technicians, the workforce has steadily grown to today’s circa 50 employees, normally working in two shifts to meet customer demands.
A key service for TAM has for many years been qualified line and base maintenance, with customers ranging from start-up airlines to major air forces, such as the Hellenic Air Force where TAM on site in Greece supported the Saab 340H AEW operations of the 380 Airborne Early Warning and Control Squadron for more than two years.
For the Saab 2000, maintenance and support for major regional airlines is a regular business, but over the years modifications and rebuilds to specific requirements have been common; operators ranging from the Hendricks’ and Joe Gibbs’ racing teams in the US, to the very peculiar adaption of an aircraft in standard passenger configuration to be a highly specialized transport for the United States Marshals Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System (JPATS), often referred to as ”ConAir”, thanks to the popular 1997 Hollywood production.
With the addition in 2020 of the ATR in the support portfolio, as well as an increasing number of Saab 340 cargo conversions, the TAM history has just begun.