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DUBAI 09: New Malta facility and 11-year easyJet deal for SR Technics

November 17, 2009

SR Technics has announced that it is to be build a new maintenance facility in Malta, with the first customer being easyJet as part of a deal scheduled to last until 2020.

SR Technics, Malta Enterprise Corporation and Malta Industrial Parks have concluded agreements which will see the construction of a four-bay maintenance hangar (which will have the potenital for expansion to six bays) and respective workshops, which will allow SR Technics to carry out base and heavy maintenance services on narrowbody aircraft. Construction will begin mid 2010, with completion due in early 2012. “In the interim, we will use an existing two-bay hangar with the first aircraft, from easyJet, arriving for maintenance in the third quarter of 2010,” explained CEO Bernd Kessler.

With the new maintenance facility, SR Technics will offer a variety of maintenance services enabling it to grow its maintenance activities in the medium to long term. “We have the opportunity to address more than 2,000 narrowbody aircraft which are being operate within a 4 hour ferry distance,” Kessler noted. Operations will initially focus on the Airbus A320 family and by 2012, capabilities will be extended to Boeing aircraft.

Malta Enterprise and Malta Industrial Parks will support SR Technics with the local infrastructure setup. The partners will also co-operate in the areas of employee education and training, mainly through the Malta College of Art, Science and Technology, Malta’s Employment and Training Corporation in close collaboration with SR Technics’ own training organisation. SR Technics believes that the new facility will create up to 350 jobs in Malta by 2014.

Meanwhile, SR Technics’s 11-year contract with easyJet will see the MRO provider continue to provide a wide range of MRO services including line maintenance through its Europe-wide station network, light maintenance (E-Checks), base maintenance (IL-Checks) as well as component repair and overhaul. The contract will also include the provision of consumables and expendables, logistic services and additional engineering services such as Part 21 design engineering and ACARS data management.

The agreement – covering easyJet’s current 157 Airbus fleet, which is set to grow to 207 by 2012 – includes the development of joint continuous improvement activities to achieve further cost effectiveness on a long-term basis. The partners believe that there is the potential for a 70% increase in efficiency between now and 2020.

SR Technics has been providing full support to easyJet’s Airbus fleet since 2005.

Bernie Baldwin, editor, Low-Fare & Regional Airlines/LARAnews.net
Dubai