Meet the businessman putting West Yorkshire at heart of aviation industry with new innovation hub

It will work on projects with the University of Leeds and others at a 'Product Innovation Lab'. More widely, its R&D work will focus on automation and robotics as the company seeks to maximise productivity and efficiency in aviation.

Akmal says: "Innovation is at the heart of Aeroservices, so this expansion will help accelerate our research and development and place West Yorkshire at the centre of the aerospace sector map.”

He says the core of its R&D work will centre on decontaminating fuel tanks: “We have been working on the biotechnology for more than a year and are building fuel testing kits. Using lateral flow tests we test the microbiological contamination in aircraft fuel tanks. We have partnered with fleets and Innovate UK. If fuel tanks are contaminated, fuel doesn’t flow to the aircraft engine and if that happens the aircraft falls like a stone.

“Because we have a mass customer base, we have support on testing trials, accreditations and support from Boeing and Airbus so we think we can commercialise what we want to achieve.

"We have aspirations to do R&D on military applications too; we work with a lot of militaries around the world.”

The site acquisition was supported by Lloyds Bank. Aeroservices will be seeking planning permission shortly and could move into the facility by 2027.

Akmal has local support for his plan. “West Yorkshire mayor Tracy Brabin is fully committed to the project - she has sent her business envoy to see us. And Tom Riordan, outgoing chief executive at Leeds Council, has been to see us. So we don’t have any shortage of local support.”

Akmal, 44, moved to the UK from Delhi, India, in 2003 to study a Masters degree in international marketing management. He had a few jobs in business and project analysis for companies including Tata Steel, Q8 Oils and General Electric (GE).

His family are diplomats, senior civil servants and university professors, but none are in business. His father is a nuclear chemist.

“I can’t say that I was entrepreneurial from day one but I had skillsets which make you entrepreneurial at the right time. I always wanted to solve a problem. If you have a mindset of resolving problems, understanding people, creating tailor-made solutions and being very resilient you get results.”

His ambition was always to work for himself though and in the oil and gas sector, which is where he established the business in 2008. He started out partnering ExxonMobil and today Aeroservices is its aviation distribution partner in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, providing more than a third of its revenue.

He says: “I went to ExxonMobil and said, ‘Listen guys, I need aviation lubricants and aviation oil for my customers’. My first customer base was the Indian market and it worked very well, I was picking up lots of stock in the (global financial) recession when there was hardly any customers based there. I was in the right place at the right time by being proactive and was confident to talk to people and was supplying a huge quantity of bulk product to the wider Indian market. Even back then we were one of the top 10 companies in the world with distribution rights. We were very fortunate to crack that in year one. Maybe if I tried the same thing today it would be a lot more difficult to achieve, if not impossible.

“I didn’t have any concerns because I didn’t have any debt leverage. In fact it was a good time because people were concerned not to act and the ones who did act were the winners. I always say who dares wins, I was daring in a time of difficulty.”

Competition then and now is regional rather than pan-global. Aeroservices’ customers are flag carrier airlines, so national airlines and not regional carriers.

So why would these huge global companies trust a little player from the north of England? “There was always a lot of compliance and diligence was high in the financial meltdown, but everyone wanted numbers and if you have it then there will be no issues. Money always talks.”

Aeroservices now works in more than 100 countries globally and has offices in Dubai, UAE, India and Turkey as well as ambitions to open an office in Saudi Arabia and the US.

The product line has expanded significantly. Akmal says: “Initially we were into chemicals, lubricants and oils. Now we also do tyres, component repair and management and in the last few years we have been active in engines, landing gear and APUs (Accelerated Processing Units) We own assets too which we lease to our customers so, in the end, the whole dimension has changed for us especially since Covid. We now have people who are technically qualified and from airlines and engineering backgrounds.

“We want to be in the aircraft leasing space for commercial, wide bodied aircraft. We see an opportunity because of aircraft shortages but it’s always cyclical. We plan to buy and lease on a ‘dry’ lease and not do the maintenance.”

It will need lots of financial investment because buying aircraft is not cheap but Akmal is hopeful they can manage that. Aeroservices works closely with UK Export Finance and has a good relationship with Lloyds Bank, which financed the Wakefield Hub land acquisition.

The business currently has a headcount of 50, expected to reach 75 next year. And although Dubai is its big operations base, Akmal is adamant that Leeds will always be the headquarters.

“I work in all sorts of places across the world, but the UK is always my home and we will be here forever.”

• This article first appeared in The Yorkshire Post's sister title Insider Yorkshire.