Malaysia Airlines and ATR Ink Global Maintenance Agreement

Malaysia Airlines and ATR today announced the signature of a Global Maintenance Agreement (GMA), valued at US $ 27 million, for spare parts and maintenance services for the new ATR 72-500 fleet of the two Malaysia Airlines’ subsidiaries, MASwings and Firefly.

Under this 7-year GMA, ATR will handle the repair of equipment and line replaceable units, as well as the inventory of spare parts.

Mr. Mohd Roslan Ismail, Senior General Manager (Engineering & Maintenance) of Malaysia Airlines, said: “The partnership with ATR will allow us quick and fast access, at an optimal cost, to every part of the maintenance process of the ATR aircraft in our fleet. This makes a lot of economic sense to us as the long-term support of ATR allows us to optimize the introduction of ATRs into Firefly and MASwings.” He added: We are very confident of ATR as evidenced by the orders we have placed and extending our partnership to the maintenance activities was a natural choice.”

"We are extremely pleased and proud of the decision of Malaysia Airlines to select ATR for the maintenance of their aircraft components”, said Jean-Pierre Cousserans, ATR Senior Vice-President Customer Services. “This is another significant step in the growing partnership that is now established between Malaysia Airlines, Firefly and MASwings, and ATR.” He added: “We are very excited by this project and we will soon extend this partnership to other activities, dedicated to the support of the ATR aircraft in Asia."

The Global Maintenance Agreement (GMA) represents the extensive and flexible maintenance services package ATR offers to the Operators in order to assist them during aircraft operations and reduce maintenance costs. As an aircraft manufacturer ATR has built a unique expertise offering the Customer the most cost efficient solutions to outsource their "on" and "off" aircraft maintenance requirements. The main advantages of GMA are: spares guaranteed availability, maintenance guaranteed prices and simplification through the ATR single channel.

Malaysia Airlines, the national carrier of Malaysia, is one of Asia's largest, flying more than 14 million passengers annually to over 80 across 6 continents. It has won more than 100 awards in the last 11 years and holds a lengthy record of service excellence. Malaysia Airlines was the first airline to win the “World’s Best Cabin Crew” by Skytrax UK consecutively from 2001 until 2004, and more recently in 2007. It is one the 6 only airlines accredited as a "5-star airline" by Skytrax UK, an accolade it has won for 3 consecutive years, from 2006 to 2008.

Last year, Firefly and MASwings, two wholly-owned subsidiaries of Malaysia Airlines, took to the skies on 2nd April and 1st October 2007 respectively, and orders were subsequently placed for 20 ATR 72-500 for Firefly and 10 ATR 72-500 for MASwings. To date, 3 ATR aircraft have joined Firefly’s fleet and 1 in MASwings’ fleet.

Toulouse, Southern France-based regional aircraft manufacturer ATR is the world leader in the 50 to 74-seat turboprop market. ATR is an equal partnership between Alenia Aeronautica (a Finmeccanica company) and EADS.

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