Garuda, Swissair sign maintenance deal

Garuda, Swissair sign maintenance deal

JAKARTA (JP): Flag carrier Garuda Indonesia signed on
Wednesday a three-year maintenance contract for Airbus A-330
component pooling with Swissair Technics.

Garuda's executive vice president for engineering and
maintenance Richard Budihadianto said the deal entailed Swissair
supplying Garuda with high reliability A-330 components and
guaranteed lead-time in the delivery, while Garuda would send
unserviceable components to Swissair.

He said the pooling agreement would enable Garuda, which
operates six Airbus A-330 aircraft, to save up to 75 percent of
the 1999 estimated component repair cost.

"Under this pooling agreement, Garuda will pay only US$2.83
million, consisting of $585,771 availability fee and $2.25
million maintenance fee based on flight hours, far from the
projected component repair cost for all the A-330 aircraft this
year of about $4.99 million," he said.

Without a pooling agreement, each of the components would have
to be sent to different maintenance centers, which is a longer
and costlier process, he said.

He added the pooling system would exempt Garuda from investing
invest $9.4 million to supplement the $20.4 million outlaid for
procuring additional A-330 component spare parts. He said Garuda
could obtain required components whenever needed by paying the
pooling fee instead of investing $9.4 million,

Swissair Technics is the only A-330 component pooling provider
in Europe. Under the pooling agreement, components of A-330 are
used jointly by members of the pooling agreement, which also
includes Sabena and Austrian Airlines.

Richard said Garuda decided to enter the pooling agreement
because the existing Garuda Maintenance Facility (GMF) lacked
capability to maintain A-330 components.

GMF did not focus on A-330 component repairs because Garuda
operates only a small number of the aircraft, he explained.

Garuda's current fleet consists of six Airbus A-330, three
Boeing B-747-400, four Boeing B-747-20, nine Boeing B-737-300,
seven Boeing B-737-400, five Boeing B-737-500, five DC-10 and
five Fokker F-28.

The airline serves 37 international and 21 domestic
destinations, with its six Airbus A-330 jets on routes to
Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

Richard said Swissair Technics was chosen to be a pooling
partner because it is the only A-330 component pooling provider.

Under the agreement, Swissair Technics guarantees provision of
a service level of 98 percent in supplying the components, higher
than the average level of around 95 percent, he said.

Pooling components for A-330 will include air condition
system, auto pilot system, equipment furnishing, fire protection,
flight control system, part of landing gear system and navigation
system.

President and chief executive officer of Swissair Technics,
Hans Ulrich Beyeler, noted the reticence of Asian airlines to
join the agreement.

"So far, airlines in Asia are reluctant to enter this pooling
scheme because they do not want to be dependent on the provider.
Sometimes the barrier is the tendency of red-tape bureaucracy in
the country on export and import of components."

He said under the agreement his firm guaranteed delivery of
the components in 48 hours following the request, much faster
than the lead-time of repair offered by other repair stations
from 20 days to 30 days.

Swissair Technics currently sells components worth up to $400
million to third parties and another similar value to flag
carrier Swissair. (cst)