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PLATTSBURGH—"If a region is fortunate, once in a generation it has something that comes along that is transformational to its economy," said Garry Douglas, president of the Plattsburgh-North Country Chamber of Commerce.

And "transformational" is the effect that Douglas says the Laurentian Aerospace Corporation will have on the Plattsburgh economy. Douglas, Gov. George Pataki and area lawmakers were present this week to introduce Laurentian and its CEO Paul Gobeil to the Plattsburgh business community.

Laurentian is a newly created company that will provide aircraft service to commercial airlines, air cargo and military wide body jets such as Boeing 747s and Airbus A300s. According to Gobeil, while there is plenty of competition for narrow body jet maintenance, there are very few companies in the wide body business.

Laurentian will be performing "C checks" which are routine maintenance checks that occur every 15 months and "D checks" which occur every four years. The cost of these checks can run from $500,000 to almost $2 million, depending on what types of issues arise during the checks. "These are expensive, so you don't need to do many to be sucessful," said Gobeil.

Although presently many airlines service their own planes, Gobeil said that in an effort to save money, many companies plan to be outsourcing this service. Many of these maintenance facilities are outdated and have to manually dock the planes, a process that takes adds a whole day each time the plane goes in or out of the maintenance bay.

"Just our computer docking system alone will save companies money," said Gobeil.

Since having to ground planes costs airlines big money, using Laurentian' s services will save airlines a half million dollars per plane. As a result, Laurentian will be able to offer competitive rates by using the latest technology, such as a laser docking system which will cut the service time for the planes in half.

Already Gobeil has several letters of intent from airlines that plan to be customers of Laurentian, once the operation is up and running. Gobeil expects his customers to be from the United States, Canada, Europe and possibly Asia. Plattsburgh is also perfectly positioned on the transatlantic flight line between the United States and Europe, which offers many airlines convenience.

With the numbers of orders for large aircraft increasing each year, Gobeil sees the company expanding to more than its original two bays. With the Plattsburgh site space was not a problem and the Clinton County Legislature has promised Laurentian that the space they need will be reserved for them.

Also the size and length of Plattsburgh' s runway will have no problem landing the large planes and was a major factor in attracting Laurentian to the area.

"We haven't seen anything like this space in the US and Canada," Gobeil said. "There is plenty of space for future expansion."

The father of the Plattsburgh Air Force Base, Clyde Lewis was also present for the announcement.

"This runway here is the best one in the whole northeast," Lewis said. "This area is the future of aviation."

Douglas told Lewis, "What you built here 50 years ago is about to have new life."

Douglas predicts that Plattsburgh will become an aviation center, with a cluster of supporting aviation companies coming to the area to work with Laurentian. In fact, the day after the announcement Douglas planned to give a site tour to a company that had already called and was interested.

"Just like Bombardier, this company will draw in a cluster of supporting companies around it," Douglas said.

"I see Plattsburgh emerging as a center of excellence in aerospace," said Gobeil.

For many, the announcement was the end of a long road toward fully redeveloping the base since its closure.

"We're gonna fly now," Douglas said. "This is a culmination of what we' ve been working toward since the base closure in '95."