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Air France Industries Expands Asian Airline
Support
From its primary role of providing technica l support
for the Air France fleet, Air France Industries (AFI) sees the
Far East as a key area for expansion of customized services, to
provide similar maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facilities
through partnerships with local airlines. In China, in particular,
AFI has been actively prospecting the potentially massive MRO
market, as reflected in the opening of a second regional office
in Shanghai last month.
As AFI's Vice-President Business Development Ludovic Loisel
pointed out at Asian Aerospace yesterday, this supplements AFI's
original office in Beijing, for the increasing volume of business
in both China and neighbouring countries, including Thailand and
Vietnam. His colleague Bruno Delile, AFI Vice-President Components
Support, said that Asia accounted for about 20% of the total
airline component market for such aircraft as the Airbus A320/330/340
and Boeing 737 and 777, and was still expanding at about 6% per
year.
In the three main markets of China, South Korea and the rest
of south-east Asia, where China alone had 34 commercial carriers,
including Air China, China Eastern, and China Southern, turnover
had doubled in the past two years. Among major AFI developments
in that time were partnership agreements in March 2001 with China
Eastern and Vietnam Airlines, for skills and engineering transfers
to allow both operators to undertake their own heavy maintenance
checks. AFI was already providing heavy maintenance and servicing
for China Eastern's fleet of A340s and CFM56-5C engines, overhauling
these, CFM56s and CF6-80C2 engines for Air China, and providing
component support for Vietnam Airlines's 10 Airbus A320s.
In September 2001, AFI signed an agreement with Vietnam Airlines
for full support of its of CFM56-5B engines. In the following
month, it also received an MRO contract from Asiana, Korea's second
biggest carrier, for the thrust-reversers of its 80 GE CF6-80
and 44 CFM56 turbofans powering its Boeing 737s, 747s and 767s.
By John Fricker
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