Spairliners Supports Qantas A380 fleet

Jan. 14, 2009
Agreement calls for repair and replacement of around 750 components.

HAMBURG -- Spairliners, a joint venture between Lufthansa Technik AG and Air France Industries, has started work on component support for the Airbus A380 with a contract from the Australian airline Qantas, a year before the first A380s are due for delivery to Lufthansa and Air France. The technical service agreement with the world's second-largest A380 customer calls for the repair and replacement of around 750 components held in readiness in the well-stocked Spairliners warehouse.

The ten-year contract awarded by Qantas to the Hamburg-based company covers all 20 wide-body aircraft ordered by the Australian airline.

Added to the future Air France and Lufthansa fleets, this means that Spairliners will be responsible for providing component support for a total of 47 Airbus A380s.

"The predicted reliability and cost of A380 components, combined with a medium size fleet of 20 aircraft, had led Qantas Engineering to investigate options outside its traditional acquisition and maintenance approach," says David Cox, Executive Manager of Qantas Engineering. "Entering into a component and repair arrangement with Spairliners will provide a number of benefits to Qantas."

"Qantas' choice demonstrates the capacity of Spairliners to ensure a global availability of components -- far beyond the European borders," says Jean-Luc Fattelay, Spairliners CEO .

"Our unique concept will offer economies of scale by allowing spares investments to be shared and will guarantee Qantas additional operational comfort by providing access to our large inventory pool," says Dr. Georg Fanta, Spairliners CFO.

Backed by the expertise of both Air France Industries and Lufthansa Technik, as well as a state of the art information system, the component support provided by Spairliners covers the full range of services from MRO activities to spare parts inventory management and the associated logistics. The repair of A380 components is distributed between Air France Industries' new component overhaul facility E.O.L.E. near Paris-Orly airport and Lufthansa Technik's component workshops in Hamburg. Operators will be globally supplied with components via Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport through an efficient spare parts supply network.