Arik And Lufthansa To Establish Aircraft Maintenance Facility

Arik Air, West Africa’s largest carrier,  in conjunction with Lufthansa Technik plans to establish an international Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) facility that would attract businesses from different parts of the world.

As disclosed by the Arik’s Chairman, Joseph Arumemi Ikhide, at the airline’s 6th year celebration, when completed, the MRO will be one of Lufthansa Technik’s major business outside Hamburg, Germany.

According to the Arik boss, the airline would be built in Nigeria to meet international standards, including that of the International Aviation Safety Assessment Program (IASA) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) of the United States.

“The MRO we are setting up with Lufthansa is global. It is not strictly for Arik alone. I just want to make that one very clear. Lufthansa sent us to Malta; the base of Lufthansa is Hamburg, but they have this type of facility they want to build for us in Malta; they have in Budapest; they have in Asia.

“What we made very clear to Lufthansa is that we want an MRO that will be global. Someone can come from Philippines, some can come from France, but one problem that we have, which I don’t know, except government takes a very strong step; we are looking for NGs, Next Generation aircraft. We are thinking about the A330s; we are not thinking about B737-200. We won’t maintain all that, but we may maintain B737-400,” Arumemi Ikhide said.

The MRO which will be built to carry out overall maintenance of New Generation aircraft will save Nigeria aviation companies lots of money as Nigeria aviation spend millions of Dollars every year to repair their aircraft overseas.

Source:www.ventures-africa.com