• Manoj Bogoda on pioneering an aviation business in the UAE

The Sri Lankan mark on the global stage is not always creative. While we do speak a lot about artists, actors, and musicians who have done us proud, something we can overlook is the innate entrepreneurial spirit of Sri Lankans. Manoj Bogoda is one such entrepreneur. 

An industrialist of sorts based out of Dubai, over the last few years Bogoda has devoted much of his boundless passion to creating a business in the UAE that not only caters to the most stringent of international standards, but also provides Sri Lankans and other immigrants in the Middle East the chance to build stable careers in an altogether remarkable industry. 

Bogoda is the CEO of UUDS AERO, which specialises in aircraft Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO). UUDS AERO basically covers complete maintenance for commercial passenger aircraft (from the airbuses to the Boeings to the other aircraft people use on their international travels). 

“We’re a specifically dedicated organisation for complete cabin interiors, from cockpit to tail,” Bogoda explained. “We also do certain types of cleaning and polishing for the aircraft exteriors and manufacture cabin components, like loungers and other small interior parts – these components are often very expensive to get from the aircraft manufacturers themselves, and so, many airlines use alternative part manufacturers like UUDS AERO for their aircraft maintenance, repair, and refurbishment.” 

Soaring into the aviation business

Despite helming a business centred around planes, Bogoda is not an engineer or a pilot. Far from it. His expertise lies in marketing, specifically marketing strategy development. Over the course of his career, he has worked for several marketing and creative agencies in the UAE and handled marketing in that region for global brands like Huawei, Audi, Volkswagen, Coca Cola, BMA, Nestlé, Proctor and Gamble, GlaxoSmithKline, and Van Cleef and Arpels. 

What drew Bogoda to marketing was the fact that it was a challenge. “From my school days, I was a guy who couldn’t stick to one thing or do the same thing over and over. My journey in media has been long and every day was a new challenge. One brand has one issue or another, and you have to always stay creative and keep finding new strategies to keep your brands at the top of the market,” he shared. 

His career alone was not what kept Bogoda going. His keen entrepreneurial spirit saw him wanting to diversify his interests and so he began in post-war Sri Lanka, chiefly in boutique hotels as well as in creative agencies. 

The year 2018, though, was when the seeds of UUDS AERO began. “My dream is to retire by 40, and before retiring, I received a proposal from a friend speaking about a gap in aviation for repairing broken parts. As a market, there wasn’t a lot of competition, so I did my market research and study, and met with engineers and people from major airlines. I found it was a market with major opportunity, but also high risk because it is so heavily regulated,” Bogoda said of how he got into aircraft MRO. 

He first founded Volkar Aircraft Maintenance and Repair in February 2019, a year shy of the pandemic which proved to be an immense challenge. “Aviation was grounded, there were no flights, and so there was no business for over two years,” Bogoda said. 

In 2021, he tied up with the international group UUDS to gain international licences and spread to different markets, changing the name of the company to UUDS AERO and building it to what it is today – the largest company of its kind (aircraft interior maintenance, repair and manufacture) in the Middle East in terms of scope, work capabilities, and manpower. 

Taking on an entirely foreign industry

As someone with no technical experience, Bogoda was at a disadvantage when he first began his company. “A lot of my friends said I was crazy to join what is essentially the engineering field,” he shared. “They said it was like opening a hospital without being a doctor. I feel no one is born with full knowledge of anything; they learn.” 

This was indeed one of Bogoda’s biggest challenges in setting up what is now UUDS AERO. 

By its very nature, the aircraft and airline industries are fraught with regulations and certifications, most of which are hard to get and take time to get. What also initially overwhelmed Bogoda was the lingo – the many different terms and acronyms that engineers and professionals used. He approached this by speaking to young engineers who showed great potential and taking them on board as partners whose role was to help formulate the business and ensure that the technical and quality end of the operation remained sound. 

“All my businesses have partners. You can’t do it alone,” Bogoda said, adding that bringing partners into a business as opposed to paid employees built a greater chance of success, because partners in a business would always bring with them more commitment and drive to succeed than an employee would. Bogoda then brings in his substantial expertise to make a business reach its maximum potential in penetrating the market and reaching customers. 

Reaching customers as a newbie in aviation was no easy feat, Bogoda explained. In addition to companies being less likely to trust a newcomer (especially one that lacks experience), the aviation business is not as ad hoc as other industries. Tenders only open every three to five years and if that window is missed there’s no way back in. 

Then, of course, there is the technical end of things – the certifications. “Every single activity needs different licences – whether it’s composite and plastic repairs or cosmetic finishing or hydrographic plating – every component of the process needs different certifications and that can be quite challenging,” Bogoda said.

Sri Lanka: To give back or not to give back? 

As with all Sri Lankans building large businesses abroad, Bogoda has had to consider how he can link his work back to Sri Lanka – to give back to his country in some way. This is something he has already done by investing back into Sri Lanka over the years through the other businesses he has built within its shores. But what of aviation? 

Well, there is potential, of course. Sri Lanka is a geographic hub for South Asia and is right next to one of the world’s biggest aviation markets, India. But then there are a lot of challenges that come with operating in Sri Lanka, especially for an industry that depends so heavily on ultimate quality and unfailingly delivering on time and this gives Bogoda pause – a feeling he shared many people all over the world had when it came to truly investing in Sri Lanka. 

Even outside of the economic crisis and the turbulent events that plagued Sri Lanka, there was still a great level of uncertainty for those operating high-stakes businesses because of issues like labour union activities and power shortages (power cuts long predate the current crisis), he said. “In this industry, once you commit to something you can’t delay even by half an hour. You have to have efficiency and on-time delivery with no compromise on quality, and when there’s politics, strikes, and shortages, that’s a kind of risk no one wants to take,” Bogoda shared. 

Lax law and order and security are also issues that deter investment in Sri Lanka, with Bogoda sharing that he had personally been threatened or received threats from various parties in Sri Lanka in the past when trying to build businesses and this too deterred outside investment in Sri Lanka. 

The current economic crisis has only served to make the outlook on investing in Sri Lanka worse, as now there are unexpected shortages, significantly higher operating costs, and other things such as import restrictions that seriously impact an international business’s ability to succeed. 

“The economy has to drive forward and we can’t really just say ‘investors don’t want to come to Sri Lanka’. We need to find out why. The answer is because of insecurity, but what insecurity? Is it simply financial insecurity? Staff insecurity? Or because of mafia gangs and insecurity over your life and family?” Bogoda asked, adding: “Who would want to put in their money and then have their hands burned or give their life for their country in this way?”

This is not to say that Bogoda has decided to stop giving back to his home country; he’s just had to become more calculated about it. One impactful way he can give back to Sri Lanka is by developing its people. UUDS AERO employs over 475 people within its Dubai operations, many of whom, Bogoda shared, were sent by unscrupulous agents who had promised them jobs and a better life, only to be sent to Dubai on tourist visas and left stranded and unemployed.

Bogoda’s efforts to stop the sending of such immigrants to the UAE illegally have also seen him be threatened by people back in Sri Lanka, tying back into gaps in law and safety that leave people unwilling to invest in Sri Lanka. This trend of scamming hopeful immigrants also leaves Sri Lankans appearing problematic in the eyes of the UAE community, which further impacts the job market for Sri Lankans. 

Bogoda also noted that Sri Lankans tended to also ask for higher salaries than immigrants from other countries, which combined with the optics of immigration scams meant that businesses were becoming more reluctant to hire Sri Lankans. 

He is still committed to developing Sri Lankans though, even on home ground. Part of Bogoda’s aviation activities in Sri Lanka includes plans to open an office that employs fresh engineers just leaving university, giving them the chance to work on actual aviation design and develop the skills needed to become professional aviation engineers. 

“Typically, engineers spend large amounts on their diplomas and degrees and then on completing their education, have to intern (unpaid) for at least a year before being able to get proper jobs. I wanted to change that system and I have already done it here in Dubai. I hire interns and train them with paid salary jobs – not the same as experienced technicians and engineers – and after a year they can choose to become permanent or move on.” 

Bogoda also hopes to start a small academy for interior aircraft technicians to study the craft. This is a skill gap that is often ignored, but still proves to be an interesting career path. 

“I can see that gap and currently I hire people from automotive backgrounds who don’t know much about aviation and then I have to certify them. It can be a lengthy process and this academy would give people the chance to study this area specifically. Not everyone wants to or can be an aircraft engineer, but they can be technicians or painters or work on repairs. There are many different sectors within aviation.”