SIA upgrades maintenance facility
Rendi A. Witular, The Jakarta Post, Singapore
To reinstate its existence as a leading regional aircraft maintenance company, SIA Engineering Company Ltd, a subsidiary of Singapore Airlines, is set to upgrade its maintenance hangar to accommodate wide body aircraft and to provide faster repair service.
The company will add an additional two airplane hangars from the current three with a total investment around US$10 million.
Senior technical director of the company, George Goh, told The Jakarta Post that the hangars were aimed at accommodating the latest big-body Boeing 777-200/300 commercial airplanes and to increase the capacity of the facilities from six airplanes at present to 10.
"In 2004, the two hangars will be in operation. The completion of the facilities will put us as the first company in Asia with the ability to fix three B777-200/300 at the same time," said Goh.
The B777-200/300 is the latest series of commercial airplanes made by the United States' aviation giant Boeing Company. Singapore Airlines currently has 37 of these type in operation.
SIA Engineering was established in 1992 to maintain the airplanes used by Singapore Airlines. In its development, the company plans to take maintenance orders from other countries.
The company, which employs 4,000 workers, currently has some 52 customers outside the SIA fleet, such as Air China, Federal Express and Northwest.
According to Goh, each airplane maintenance contract could reach up to US$3 million per year.
Under the contract, an airplane must be put under light maintenance after 18,000 hours of flight, undergo frame and engine overhaul after 20,000 hours of flight.
"For light maintenance, we usually probe the plane for any corrosion which always becomes the main problem for airplanes," said Goh.
The company, which occupies a 34,000 square-meter site, managed to book a total profit of around US$200 million in 2001. Airframe and component overhaul services accounted for 60 percent of the company's revenue, while line maintenance and technical ground handling contributed 40 percent to the revenue. Currently, the company has the ability to handle line maintenance for 200 airplanes per day.
The company is targeting a growth of 30 percent for 2003.
Goh claimed that the company was the most advanced and comprehensive maintenance company in Asia as it was the only company in the region that has the ability to fix the B777 airplane.
"Our main competitor in Asia is currently the Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Company Ltd (HAECO) which has the ability of housing large body aircraft of three B747s side by side," said Goh.
When asked whether Indonesian airline companies had ever made maintenance contracts with the company, Goh said only the now- defunct Sempati Airlines.
"Well currently we haven't received airplanes from Indonesian airline companies. I heard that Garuda Indonesia Airways (GIA) has a maintenance company that provides some kind of service for Indonesian airlines," said Goh.
Spokesman of Indonesia's Garuda Indonesian Airways (GIA), Pujobroto, noted that GIA has its own maintenance facility ran by its subsidiary PT Garuda Maintenance Facility (GMF) which also accepts maintenance orders from other airline companies.
"We will not send our planes to Singapore, since we already have the ability to fix them here," he said.