LONDON – Egyptian carrier Air Cairo and the French/Italian joint venture ATR have announced that they would be collaborating.

Collaboration

Both companies have announced the signature of the Global Maintenance Agreement (GMA).

Through this 5-year pay-by-the-hour contract, Air Cairo will benefit from the repair, overhaul, and pooling services of Line Replaceable Units for its fleet of 6 ATR 72-600s that is currently being delivered.

This agreement also includes an on-site stock of spare parts, along with blade availability and maintenance reserves.

Commenting on the announcement, Mr. Hussein Sherif, Chief Executive Officer at Air Cairo, said: “Being profitable in a low-fare environment is a day-to-day challenge, the key of which is not only to have the right aircraft but also to make the most of them.”

“As we are reintroducing the ATR platform in Egypt after 15 years, we want to ensure we can offer our passengers the most modern, comfortable, and reliable experience.”

“Our choice of the aircraft type will assist on the former two points, while the ATR GMA will support our effort to deliver the latter to our passengers.”

“For over 20 years, ATR has been reducing operators’ maintenance costs and increasing time in the air through maintenance and repair,” said David Brigante, Senior Vice-President of Customer Support and Services at ATR.

“This contributes to making regional air transport even more reliable, accessible and sustainable.”

“We will be offering Air Cairo our expertise to ensure it can make the most of its ATR fleet, as we well know that even the most efficient aircraft is only valuable when it is flying.”

Operating more than 200 weekly flights to 35 international and domestic destinations requires a good, modern, and young fleet.

The younger the fleet is, the less maintenance they need, and the longer the interval between each downtime, making the utilization per aircraft a lot higher than the older planes.

The newer generation of planes is also a great addition to the fleet in the sense that in the current day and age, we are all striving to become more sustainable with our operations and our fleets.

An airline cannot buy a couple of planes and trade them in a couple of years like a car. An airline must do careful research about each plane before deciding to buy one.

According to planespotters.net, the airline has a relatively young fleet with an average age of 8.4 years, with the youngest currently being the A320neo, although that will be changing in the future when they receive more ATRs and A320neos.

Cost

The GMA with ATR will not only be a quick and easy way to repair the aircraft with the on-site stock availability, but the contract will also be a very big cost-saving method, as the airline would only need to pay by the hour instead of contracting another facility to do their work for a higher rate.

The contract with ATR will also ensure quality maintenance services for the planes, giving them a longer lifespan than otherwise, making them more robust and more utilizable.