Austrian Airlines Creates Company to Market Aircraft Maintenance Services

Austrian Airlines AG said Monday it has created a company to independently market its aircraft maintenance services.

The new company, a subsidiary of the national flag carrier, will be called Austrian Airlines Technik Marketing GmbH, the airline said. It will debut early next year.

"Airlines tend to prefer outsourcing their maintenance business to legally independent repair shops instead of having it done directly by competitor airlines," said Thomas Kleibl, Austrian Airlines' chief financial officer.

Austrian Airlines' maintenance services generated around euro230 million (US$300 million) in business in 2005, the carrier said.

Separately, the airline said Monday that its passenger load from Jan. 1 through Nov. 30 surged 9.7 percent from the same period a year earlier and predicted it would set a traffic record for all of 2006.

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