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)