Iberia chairman and CEO Fernando Conte sees the differing MRO strategies of his own airline and British Airways (BA) as a significant issue to be addressed if the carriers proceed with their proposed merger.
The Spanish flag-carrier has been steadily building its third-party maintenance activities over the years just as BA has been largely focusing on its own needs alone.
Speaking at the MRO Europe conference in Madrid today, Conte said: "We are only at a very preliminary stage [in the merger talks]. One of the main areas that we are working on is a common business plan. Certainly there is a potential synergy that is not to be neglected in the MRO part. We hope to have more figures in a couple of months.
"We really see two different approaches to MRO in Iberia and British Airways. We defined our own strategy some years ago. To be absolutely sure that internally we had the best provider, this provider had to be challenged against the market.
"This philosophy is not adopted by British Airways at this time but we really believe this is the best way of doing things and so does, for example, Lufthansa."
He says that in two years Iberia's third-party maintenance revenues have tripled and will be $500 million in 2008.
"Iberia's maintenance policy is to grow and to be one of the top MRO providers," he adds.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
