Mexican Airbus A320 operator Interjet has completed the first heavy maintenance check for a third party customer.
An Interjet spokeswoman says the low-cost carrier's maintenance operation re-delivered earlier this week an Airbus A320 which is now registered to US low-cost carrier Frontier Airlines. She says the aircraft is owned by lessor Aviation Capital Group (ACG) and was formerly operated by US leisure carrier USA 3000.
Interjet opened in 2007 a maintenance hangar at its hub at Toluca airport outside Mexico City. Interjet's maintenance operation secured FAA approval last year, authorising it to work on US-registered A320 family aircraft, but until now it only did work on its own A320 fleet.
The Interjet spokeswoman says to date the carrier, which operates 15 A320s, has completed 18 in-house heavy checks. In February Interjet CEO Jose Luis Garza told ATI the carrier was looking to secure its first third-party maintenance customer and had several open slots on its single A320 heavy check line for the second half of 2009.
Garza also said Interjet was talking to foreign maintenance companies about potentially establishing a maintenance hub in Mexico. If such a joint venture is reached, Interjet would grow its maintenance operation well beyond its one-aircraft hangar at Toluca and build a larger third-party business.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
