MAS signs agreement with Airod

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JOINT COLLABORATION: Photo shows (from left to right) Roslan Ismail, Nor Mohd Yakcop, Ahmad and Kamil.

KUCHING: Malaysia Airlines (MAS) yesterday signed a General Terms Agreement (GTA) with Airod Sdn Bhd (Airod) that will enable both parties to collaborate with each other in providing aircraft engineering and maintenance support.

The agreement was signed on behalf of MAS by the executive vice president (Engineering and Maintenance) Mohd Roslan Ismail and chief executive of Airod Dato Kamil Aziz.

It was witnessed by Tan Sri Nor Mohd Yakcop, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department and Tan Sri Ahmad Johan, the executive chairman of National Aerospace & Defense Industries Sdn Bhd which is the holding company of Airod.

“We are glad to share our expertise with Airod and at the same time tap into their skills in order to improve our competitiveness in the market,” said Roslan.

Ahmad stated “We are excited with the signing between the two leading aviation maintenance and repair organisation (MRO) companies, as it paves the way for rationalising and subsequently growing Malaysia’s MRO industry further.

“The GTA will enable both companies to unleash their potentials by co-optimising the utilisation of resources and sharing of existing facilities to undertake additional third party aircraft maintenance work.

“This is a bold step for Malaysia to become the world’s largest independent third party MRO service provider,” Ahmad opined.

The GTA signed was for two years and would enable both MAS engineering and Airod to take advantage of the complementary strengths of each other to provide cost effective and competitive maintenance expertise for all aircraft ranging from propeller to jet engine types.

Both parties would also explore and evaluate future business opportunities in relation to the expertise sharing and develop the same into a profitable and viable business model.

Currently MAS engineering has six hangars which provide eight wide body and 10 narrow body aircraft slots, while Airod has six hangars which can accommodate 16 narrow body aircraft.

Airod also has a dedicated paint and strip hangar. The two companies have a total manpower of 6,400 and the collaboration would have the capacity to handle 64 wide body and 364 narrow body aircraft heavy maintenance visits per year from various world leading aircraft manufacturers such as Boeing, Airbus and ATR.

The coming together of the two leading local MROs would not only strengthen the capacity and capability of the local MRO industry but to position Malaysia as a leading global MRO player.