UTC Aerospace Systems (Chalet CD07) this week announced it has won a pair of new aftermarket contracts for the Airbus A320 nacelles that it makes. Both deals involve Asian airlines and both are covered by the manufacturer’s Prime Solutions support program.
In India, Indigo has chosen UTC’s Aerostructures unit to support the nacelles of its future fleet of A320neos. The maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) work will be performed at Goodrich Aerostructures Service Center-Asia Pte Ltd. in Singapore. The agreement extends the existing support program for IndiGo’s present fleet of A320ceo twinjets and will cover components including thrust reversers, fan cowls and inlet cowls.
The second agreement was signed with Goodrich Aerostructures Service China Ltd, which will provide nacelle support for Sichuan Airlines’ fleet of Airbus A320ceos. The services will be provided at the Goodrich facility in Tianjin, China.
UTC Aerospace Systems has other support and MRO sites in the region in Australia, India and Malaysia. “The Asia Pacific region is a great market for us,” said Jim Patrick, vice president of UTC’s commercial aviation marketplace. “We want to grow it and make it more cost effective through consolidation. Our big focus now is on improving distribution [of parts] and recently announced new sites in the Netherlands, Beijing, Dubai and Singapore.”
Patrick told AIN that the operators are now seeking, “very flexible and customizable levels of service with a lot of rotable parts delivered quickly.” At the same time, the UTC is working to improve the efficiency of its repair centers, with more advanced data analytics being used to achieve better synergies in its inventory management. The company also is focusing more on using health management prognostics to better predict when parts will need replacing.
