Bahrain Aviation Fuelling Company (Bafco) continues to play an important role at Bahrain International Airport, as the airport undertakes its expansion plans to meet the period of growth expected in line with the Kingdom’s Vision 2030.
As the development of the airport takes place, Bafco is aligning its expansion of the airport aviation fuelling facilities to meet the growth in the number of aircraft and the total volume of fuel it needs to deliver. This follows from Bafco’s strategy and the support of its three shareholders to invest in the company to ensure that the fuelling infrastructure is in place to allow Bafco to perform its responsibilities to deliver an impeccable fuel service in the face of ongoing change.
During 2011, Bafco completed the construction of the fuelling facilities to allow aircraft parked on the new Remote Apron (now called the Eastern Apron), designed to accommodate up to 17 narrow-bodied aircraft (Code ‘C’) or 8 wide-bodied aircraft (Code ‘E’ or ‘F’).
The first stage was the installation of additional fuelling points on the existing underground fuel hydrant to serve the wide bodied aircraft which was followed by the second stage to construct a new section of underground fuel hydrant to serve the narrow bodied aircraft.
Throughout, the fuel hydrant construction work had to be carefully coordinated with the civil construction of the new stands and the installation of the many other underground services that are also required to allow aircraft to be turned-around between arrival and departure both effectively and safely.
The new section of hydrant required two significant tie-ins to the existing fuel hydrant. To make the two tie-ins, the existing fuel hydrant had to be physically taken out of service to allow the new connections (comprising both pipe and valves) to be installed and tested.
Bafco was proud to report that the tie-ins and associated works had been undertaken safely within the time constraints so that there was no disruption to the fuelling service provided to the airport. The teamwork involved close collaboration between Bafco, Bafco’s construction contractor, the Bahrain Airport Company (BAC) and their contractors and included many dry-runs and tests to show the most effective approach had been selected.
After the completion of the construction stages, detailed plans were then prepared by Bafco to commission the new sections of the fuel hydrant. The additional fuelling points on the existing fuel hydrant were successfully commissioned first so that fuelling of wide bodied aircraft could commence.
This was followed by the commissioning of the new section of fuel hydrant which was successfully completed to allow the first fuelling of narrow bodied aircraft to be undertaken during January 2012. Throughout this period, as the stands were completed, but before the fuel hydrant could be completely commissioned, Bafco provided the fuelling service to aircraft using Fuellers (tanker vehicles).
The end of 2011 saw a change at the top of Bafco’s management, with the general manager, Majeed Al Gassab, retiring after a total service with Bafco and its predecessor of more than 41 years. On January 1, 2012, Al Gassab handed the reigns over to Salahuddin Al Alawi.
Now in its 27th year since formation, Bafco was honoured and proud again to be entrusted to provide the aviation fuelling service to the second Bahrain International Air Show at the Sakhir Airbase in January 2012. “We had another significant logistical undertaking to take manpower and equipment to Sakhir to achieve this objective,” says Al Alawi, adding “although Bafco had provided the service successfully at the inaugural Air Show in 2010, it was still a major investment in time and effort to ensure that the service we provided during the 2012 Air Show was first-rate and continued to meet our highest level of safety and customer satisfaction.”
