Emirates and Lufthansa Technik AG have signed two major contracts regarding comprehensive maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO).
MRO services for Airbus A380 long-range aircraft, of which the Dubai-based airline is by far the world's largest operator. In line with one of the new agreements, Lufthansa Technik will overhaul main landing gears of Emirates' double-deck flagships. Additionally, the MRO company will provide the airline with highly flexible extra capacity for A380 base maintenance such as C-checks. The latter agreement marks the first ever outsourcing of heavy checks from Emirates' comprehensive in-house A380 MRO capacities to an external provider.
The long-term landing gear services contract will be fulfilled by Lufthansa Technik Landing Gear Services. Over the next 13 years, the specialised workshop in the United Kingdom will overhaul main landing gear shipsets for some of Emirates' superjumbos and in the process restore them to “as-good-as-new” condition before delivering them back to the customer's MRO facilities for re-installation. The first of these landing gear overhauls is scheduled to begin in August.
The additional capacity for A380 base maintenance services will be provided by Lufthansa Technik Philippines (LTP) in Manila, the Lufthansa Technik Group's competence centre for heavy checks on the world's largest passenger aircraft. The first Emirates A380 arrived at LTP at the end of January. To cope with the significantly increased demand for MRO services on the largest commercial airliner type, LTP has recently invested a medium seven-digit USD figure into additional A380 overhaul capacities.
These are planned to go online in the second half of 2023 and will initially host additional checks for Emirates.
“With most airlines now having left the COVID crisis behind and air travel demand skyrocketing, passenger capacity is needed more than ever, and this positively affects MRO demand for the A380. The happier we are to not only bring our existing and well-proven capabilities for this aircraft type to market, but also to invest in building up additional capabilities such as the third A380 overhaul line in Manila,” said Kai-Stefan Roepke, Vice President Corporate Sales Europe, Middle East and Africa at Lufthansa Technik. “Having won the trust of Emirates, both the type's largest operator and themselves a renowned authority in the field of A380 MRO, makes us extra proud.”
While the A380 base maintenance services are an entirely new field of cooperation for Emirates and Lufthansa Technik, the MRO provider and the airline already enjoy a long-standing business relationship in other technical segments.
