FLS AEROSPACE HAS expanded its position as a component-support prime contractor with the signing of a five-year deal with Air 2000. The agreement takes Europe's largest independent maintenance company into the Airbus Industrie A320 rotables business for the first time.
The component-support work for Air 2000 arrives on top of existing base and line-maintenance agreements between the two sides, and includes the purchase of a significant stock of A320 rotables from the Manchester, UK-based charter airline. FLS is now looking to extend to other carriers its activities in the A320 support business.
The deal is part of an investment by FLS Aerospace in rotables stocks and test equipment which could be as high as £15 million ($23 million) this year. The company expects to see external turnover in component-support services double to £22 million in 1996 from £11 million in 1994.
Steffen Harpoth, chairman and chief executive of FLS Aerospace, estimates that, by 1997, components work could account for as much as 50% of company business.
Stansted-based FLS Aerospace already provides component services for several aircraft types, and this year it is adding the Boeing 767 as well as the A320 to the list of airliners, which it can support.
The company is now heading across the North Atlantic with its component-support services on the back of a recent deal to maintain and support McDonnell Douglas DC-10s belonging to charter start-up Laker Airways. FLS also expects to get a boost from the US, with an announcement later this month, of a long-term maintenance deal with a 747 cargo operator.
Source: Flight International
