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MAE Wins Mauritius Deal

MAS Aerospace Engineering (MAE), the engineering arm of Malaysia Airlines has won a one year agreement from Air Mauritius covering heavy maintenance and repainting a new livery for eight aircraft comprising six Airbus A340-200s and two A330-200s.

The services will be conducted at the one-stop MAE facility in Subang which has the capacity of servicing more than 200 planes annually.

Malaysia Airlines senior general manager, engineering and maintenance, Mohd Roslan Ismail sealed the agreement with Air Mauritius executive vice president, technical services, Jacques Gentil.

MAE has been pushing for more third party work after boosting efficiency levels in recent years.

Roslan said, “We are delighted with the confidence shown by Air Mauritius who awarded the contract to us. This marks a breakthrough for us into the African aviation market especially in capturing businesses from southern Africa.

“Many of the small and medium size airlines operate Airbus aircraft and we have built our capabilities to include the A340s. In addition, it is more cost effective for them to send the aircraft to Malaysia for maintenance due to our proximity to southern Africa, and lower manpower cost compared to Europe.”

There are currently 660 aircraft in Africa. Boeing forecasts that Africa will need 710 new jets worth USD80 billion between 2010 and 2029. At the same time, Embraer’s Outlook on Africa forecasts that Africa will need to add 770 aircraft by 2029. This includes 220 new jets in the 30 to 120-seat segment, 420 narrow-bodies and wide-bodies as well as 130 turboprops.

Roslan added, “We currently employ more than 800 aircraft engineers and 3,000 technicians. As part of our expansion plans over the next few years, we plan to have an additional 1,000 engineers and 2,500 technicians.”

Gentil of Air Mauritius said, “We are very confident of MAE’s expertise, experience and high quality services. We believe in their capabilities and look forward to working with them for our aircraft maintenance requirements”.