The Hindu Business Line : GMR teams up with Malaysian Airlines for repair facility

Hyderabad, Aug. 20 With Lufthansa deciding to put off the plan to set up an MRO facility in India, the GMR Hyderabad International Airport has teamed up with Malaysian Airlines to set up an MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul) facility at RGIA.

The two companies would establish a joint venture company to start MRO operations.

The MRO would come up in the special economic zone (SEZ), for which GMR had got a mandate, at the airport. It, however, would take a week or two to decide on the percentage of stakes of the two entities in the MRO facility and the size of the project.

Mr Tengku Azmil Zahruddin, Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer of Malaysian Airlines, and Mr Kiran Kumar Grandhi, Chairman (Airports) GMR group, signed a memorandum of understanding for the project.

“There is a huge scope for a MRO facility in India. With some 300 aircraft in operations currently, the Indian aviation market is one of the fastest growing markets in the world. The country would add 200 more aircraft in the next two years,” Mr Kiran Kumar said here in a press release.

It was expected that about 2,000 new planes would be added in the next 8-10 years, he said.

The MRO centre would be able to handle aircraft ranging from light jets to super-jumbos such as the A380.

Commenting on the development, a top company executive said the GMR had decided to go ahead and align with the Malaysian partner with “Lufthansa deciding to put off its India plan to set up an MRO as it would not fit into its global strategy for now.”

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