The maintenance unit of Iberia and International Airlines Group (IAG) LCC Vueling have reached a long-term agreement for the maintenance and repair of airframes, engines and parts at Iberia’s Barcelona base.
Iberia Maintenance announced earlier in June it is committed to boosting heavy-maintenance business at Barcelona El Prat Airport.
The latest agreement is in line with Iberia Maintenance’s strategy of building up its Barcelona business. It covers C checks and six-year-checks of Vueling’s Airbus A320ceos and A320neos.
Under the agreement, Iberia Maintenance’s Madrid engine workshops will be the sole providers of maintenance and repairs for the CFM56-5B engines on Vueling’s A320ceos, as well as being preferential providers of these services for aircraft with International Aero Engines V2500s.
“Apart from strengthening maintenance activity in El Prat, the deal indicates confidence in our work on engines and parts,” Iberia Maintenance Manager Andy Best said.
Vueling also will use Iberia Maintenance as its preferential partner for pre-delivery checks of aircraft that are being sold, leased or returned.
Vueling has charged Iberia Maintenance with ensuring the availability of certain critical aircraft components and equipment such as wheels and brakes (some 5,000 annual replacements or repairs), emergency equipment, oxygen bottles, cabin crew seats, batteries, evacuation slides and more.
Iberia´s maintenance hangar at El Prat has 300 employees, with a total capacity of more than 300,000 man-hours of service per year for these types of overhauls. Located at the head of Runway 20, the hangar covers 13,200 m² (142,084 ft.²) of a 24,000 m² site. With a height of over 40 m (131 ft.) and a length of 200 m, it can accommodate up to four narrowbody aircraft simultaneously.
Iberia Maintenance is a leading provider of MRO services. It provides line and base maintenance services for all IAG carriers’ Airbus fleets. It specializes in V2500, CFM56 and Rolls-Royce RB211 engine overhauls and soon will add Pratt & Whitney geared-turbofan and CFM LEAP engines to its portfolio.
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