Aviation Africa: MROs eye tremendous market in Africa

Speaking at the Aviation Africa MRO panel Hisham Ali, consultant to the Chairman of Egypt Air, said that African MRO market is growing. Africa represents four percent of the global 25,368 fleet and 3.9 percent of global 75.6 billion USD annual MRO expenditure. The most dominant aircraft are the B737 and A320. Kaleyesus Bekele reports from the conference.
Time Aerospace thumbnail

 

Ali highlighted the need to invest on new technology and human development to be able to cater the growing demand for MRO services. He said staff retention is also an important task.

Tommaso Auriemma, CEO ATI, a Joint venture company established by Air France Industries and Royal Air Marroc in 2009, pointed out that his company was providing reliable MRO services for African and Middle East carriers. Tommaso said that to keep a sustainable MRO business one has to deliver a quality service with competitive price. “We need to be flexible and follow the market demand. The MRO business requires a lot of investment,” Tommaso said.     

Richard Hass, vice president Africa Lufthansa Technik, said that his company eyes a tremendous MRo market in Africa. “We have so many customers in Africa. We want to grow our customer relation from supplier relationship with a higher level. There are on going talks with our customers that would enable us grow our relationship. First increased cooperation and then eventually it could evolve into establishing joint venture companies,” Haas said. “There are a lot of development in the African aviation market,” he added.

Hass pointed out that Africa has a very diversified market  adding that MRO companies should adopt the demands of each country. He said that Africa is a big continent and logistics was one of the major problems facing his company in Africa. According to him customs clearance is another challenge. He adds that money repatriation out of some African countries has become a major challenge due to foreign currency crunch.

Marie Ioan, Airbus Services marketing director for the Middle East, Africa and India, highlighted that African airlines such as Ethiopian Airlines, South African Airways, Air Senegal and Egypt Air are acquiring new state of the art aircraft. “Ethiopian Airlines are operating A350s and we recently delivered A320NEO to Air Senegal. We will also deliver A320NEO to Egypt Air. So we need to train our African customers how to maintain these new aircraft,” Ioan said.

She said OEMs should support the maintenance capabilities of airlines adding that Airbus was investing a lot of money on new MRO technologies and trainings. “We recently unveiled hangar of the future in Singapore and we are investing on drones,” she said. “We are in the phase of providing new MRO solutions,” she added.

Jeff Wilkinson, CEO Joramco, on his part said that having a good deal contract and proper planning  are the key issues that an MRO center has to consider. “Reliability and flexibility are also important to ensure customer satisfaction,” Wilkinson said.          

  Jeff Wilkinson, CEO Joramco