GMR Group’s MRO facility to launch this month
21 Oct 2011
Hyderabad: Joint venture MAS-GMR Aerospace Engineering Company (MGAE), a third party airframe MRO facility, is expected to launch this month. The facility is a joint venture between Malaysian Aerospace Engineering (MAE) and GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd (GHIAL), a subsidiary of GMR Infrastructure.
A first of its kind, the facility is located in the special economic zone at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport. MGAE will have one wide-body hangar, one narrow-body hangar with three bays and a paint-cum-narrow-body hangar with associated workshops.
It will also have the capability to provide base maintenance services, starting with narrow bodied aircraft like Airbus 320, ATR 42/72 and Boeing 737-NG as also wide-body aircraft like A330 and Boeing 777.
The Directorate of Civil Aviation is due to complete the audit of the joint venture facility. Once the audit is complete, airline operators can then opt for maintenance, repair and overhaul operations at the base.
The facility will be audited by the European Aviation Safety Agency next month and is likely to attract European registered aircraft for MRO services, if the stringent EASA criteria are met.
According to a release, MGAE has now close to 350 employees, the bulk of which are local Indian skilled workforce backed up by retired Malaysian Airlines engineers and technicians who will kick-start operations here.
The MAE, a subsidiary of Malaysian Airline System Bhd, trained 72 Indian engineers who underwent a two-year on the job training programme in Subang, Malaysia, and returned to Hyderabad as aircraft maintenance engineers.
Support staff of MGAE underwent familiarisation exposure in MAE. In addition, MAE provided assistance in the design of the joint venture facilities and operational readiness support.