Air Astana, the national carrier of Kazakhstan, has concluded an exclusive long-term repair and overhaul agreement with Lufthansa Technik for the V2500 engines powering its Airbus A320 fleet. Peter Foster, President and CEO, signed the corresponding contract. Lufthansa Technik will provide the full range of engine repair and overhaul services, including warranty management and spare engine coverage.
After several of its V2500 engines have been overhauled by Lufthansa Technik since 2015, Air Astana was able to assess the quality, reliability and timely performance of work by its partner. The new contract covers 25 planned shop visits and any non-scheduled removals. The engine repair and overhaul will be performed in Lufthansa Technik's engine shop in Hamburg. The first engine to be overhauled under the terms of the new contract is scheduled to arrivein the shop in April.
"It is a pleasure to extend our co-operation with Lufthansa Technik,"says John Wainwright, Senior Vice President, Engineering & Maintenance, Air Astana. "It is important to us to offer a safe and competitively priced service to our passengers, and an essential enabling factor for us is the reliability and availability of our engines. Lufthansa Technik's attention to quality and fast turnaroundmeans we have the engines we need, when we need them."
"We have already been working on the terms and conditions of this contract since May 2015, when we received the first V2500 engine from Air Astana in our shop," says Denis Kanevskiy, Sales Manager Lufthansa Technik. "We are delighted that we were able to convince Air Astana of our high quality and competitive V2500 engine services to sign this long-term exclusive agreement".
The new contract further intensifies the business relationship between the two companies. Lufthansa Technik's specialist for regional aircraft engines, Lufthansa Technik AERO Alzey, already supports Air Astana since it started operations in 2002. And in 2014, a five-year contract comprising engine maintenance, repair and overhaul services as well as spare engine support for its fleet of CF34-10E powered Embraer E190 aircraft was signed.
Air Astana:
Air Astana, the national carrier of Kazakhstan, operates flights to over 60 domestic and international routes. The company was incorporated in late 2001 and commenced operations on 15 May 2002. The Air Astana fleet consists of Boeing 767, 757, Airbus A319, A320, A320neo, A321 and Embraer 190 aircraft. Air Astana became the first carrier from Russia, the Commonwealth of Independent States (the CIS) and Eastern Europe to be awarded the prestigious 4-Star rating by Skytrax at its World Airline Awards 2012 and was also named 'The Best Airline in Central Asia and India' that year. Both achievements were
repeated in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016.
Lufthansa Technik:
With some 35 subsidiaries and affiliates, the Lufthansa Technik Group is one of the leading providers of technical aircraft services in the world. Certified internationally as maintenance, production and design organization, the company has a workforce of more than 25,000 employees. Lufthansa Technik's portfolio covers the entire range of services for commercial and VIP/special mission aircraft, engines, components and landing gear in the areas of digital fleet support, maintenance, repair, overhaul, modification, completion and conversion as well as the manufacture of innovative cabin products.
