performance improvement
industrial services
team performance
scaling operations
aviation services
turnaround
Nayak Aircraft Services – From distressed to scalable MRO platform
Patrick Morcus
From near shutdown to €45M revenue
When I took over Nayak Netherlands, the company was close to being shut down.
€3M revenue.
Loss-making.
Downsized from 100 to 30 people.
Within 10 years, it became a €45M multi-site MRO with 330 employees and 20+ locations.
This wasn’t optimisation.
It was a complete rebuild of how the organisation operated.
INTRO
When I took over Nayak Netherlands, the company was close to shutdown.
Revenue was ~€3M.
The organisation had been downsized from 100 to 30 people.
Loss-making for years, with outdated systems and declining confidence.
The mandate was clear: stabilise or close.
CHALLENGE
The organisation lacked everything required to scale:
- no financial control
- no stable customer base
- no operational structure
- declining workforce and trust
At the same time, the aviation market was shifting rapidly towards outsourcing.
The opportunity was there.
The organisation wasn’t.
MY ROLE
As Managing Director, I took full responsibility for rebuilding the business.
Not by optimising what existed.
But by rebuilding how the organisation operated.
ACTION
- restored cashflow through immediate deployment of engineers into the market
- negotiated creditor agreements, reducing debt exposure and stabilising the company
- rebuilt the commercial model from ad-hoc work to long-term outsourcing contracts
- restructured pricing, including doubling rates where required
- implemented full operational backbone: ERP (Exact), time registration, planning and dashboards
- built management structure, training programs and workforce scaling
- expanded from one location to 20+ sites across Europe
- scaled headcount from 30 to 330 employees
BREAKING POINT
Rapid growth created pressure on cash and execution.
At one stage, workforce scaling outpaced incoming contracts, creating liquidity risk.
I introduced financial control, forecasting and governance to regain stability.
RESULT
- €45M revenue
- 330+ employees
- 20+ locations across Europe
- consistent ~10% EBITDA
- strong cashflow through contract-based model
LONG-TERM IMPACT
The systems, operating model and leadership structure remained in place long after my departure.
Nayak Netherlands became the stable foundation of the group, while other entities struggled or failed.
Today, the organisation has grown further under private equity ownership.
CLOSING LINE
This case reflects what scaling actually requires:
Taking full responsibility for rebuilding execution: across people, systems and commercial model and while growing at speed.
