| Bristol's business in Australia takes off with PAC Fire |
The contract will provide for structural protective clothing supply to Airservices Australia.
Less than 12 months after appointing PAC Fire as their principal distributor in Australia, Bristol and Pac Fire have successfully tendered for the supply of "front line fire PPE" in a contract to provide 1400 sets of structural protective clothing to Airservices Australia.
Servicing 21 of Australia's busiest airports, through the organisation's Aviation Rescue & Fire Fighting (ARFF) operation, Airservices is the country's leading supplier of firefighting services to the country's aviation sector employing 650 firefighters at airports from Darwin in the north to Hobart in Tasmania and Perth in the West to Brisbane in the East. ARFF responds to around 6,500 incidents annually.
Airservices started looking to improve the quality and performance of its structural PPE in 2008 and put out a general tender in early 2009. Pac Fire, working closely with Bristol, submitted a tender based on Bristol's lightweight ErgoTech Action™ design incorporating a Pbi Gold™ outerlayer with Goretex Airlock™ thermal and moisture barrier. A number of changes were introduced to the garment's features to make them ideal for Australian conditions which enabled Bristol and Pac Fire to secure the contract. The initial 1400 sets of fire coats and trousers included in the contract were chosen on a combination of factors including the overall performance of the Bristol garments, their certification to Australian standard AS4967 and the high Total Heat Loss readings all of which met the high specification set by ARFF. The new garments will go into service in December 2009.
| Bristol and Pac Fire have successfully tendered for the supply of front line fire PPE |
In addition to the supply of the PPE, a fully certified maintenance service will also be provided. Pac Fire has contracted a partner company, fully certified by Bristol, to carry out repairs and decontamination. All ARFF structural garments are fitted with an RFID computer chip that allows ARFF, Pac Fire and the contractor to monitor and condition code every garment throughout its service life.
Keith Ward, Pac Fire's managing director said "ARFF is now one of the best PPE equipped fire brigades in Australia and should be congratulated on it's efforts to improve the level of personal protection for it's aviation firefighters deployed across the country. ARFF now have a leading edge technical garment that will serve them well for many years".
Roger Startin, Bristol's joint MD, who met Paul McBride, Airservices Representative, in Bristol recently to discuss the 5-7 year supply, stock support and service contract, added, "This is an excellent result for us coming early in our partnership with Pac Fire and gives us great confidence in the potential for new business which exists for us in Australia. Pac Fire is a well respected company across Australia in the fire market and we are committed to harnessing the combined strength of our individual brands to establish a growing presence with our class leading and internationally recognised firefighter PPE".