AAR has sealed a long-term agreement with Russian airline Utair Aviation that will see AAR Aircraft Component Repair – Amsterdam provide services for the carrier’s Boeing B737 and ATR turboprop fleets.
The 8-year deal covers component repair and exchange, as well as reliability engineering support to improve on-wing component reliability. “This agreement reinforces the significance of our growing relationship with Utair,” said Andre op’t Hof, director of commercial operation at AAR Component Repair – Amsterdam. “The inclusion of reliability engineering allows us to go beyond what the manual requires for shop visits and also to schedule failure-preventing removals.”
“Utair wanted to invest in component availability and on-wing performance to increase efficiency and decrease costs,” said Alexander Vasiliev, deputy director for technical operations at Utair. “We had already been working with AAR’s Component Repair shop in Amsterdam and decided to sign a contract to become a priority customer and guarantee turn times on repairs.”
Surgut-headquartered Utair, one of Russia’s top five carriers, flew 7.3 million passengers in 2017 – a figure nearly 10% higher than the year before. Its fleet consists of 65 aircraft, with its main transfer hub at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport, which handles over 160 Utair flights daily.