Airbus and GMF AeroAsia sign agreement for strategic maintenance training partnership in Indonesia

Airbus and GMF AeroAsia (GMF), the maintenance and repair subsidiary of Garuda Indonesia have finalised an agreement for Maintenance Training Collaboration to develop a five-year strategic partnership. As part of this, GMF will become Airbus’ local maintenance training centre in Indonesia. This confirms the preliminary agreement (Memorandum for Collaboration) reached last year at Farnborough.

This partnership is aimed at developing the maintenance training capabilities locally in Indonesia, based on respective strengths and assets of GMF and Airbus. This co-operation will provide Airbus training standards locally to deliver flexibility and cost effectiveness. The scope of such collaboration will also address the following:

• Integration of GMF’s instructors into Airbus’ global maintenance training organisation;

• Developing Type-training capabilities for Airbus A320 and A330 aircraft maintenance;

Enabling of EASA 147 approval in Indonesia for type and basic maintenance training;

• Developing GMF’s ‘ab-initio’ (basic) training capabilities.

Richard Budihadianto, President and CEO of GMF AeroAsia says: “This joint venture with Airbus will help us ramp-up our maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) services, and to benefit from Airbus’ high standards and latest technologies in maintenance training.” He adds: “This will be essential to meet our internal training needs, as well as Indonesian market ab-initio future requirements as Garuda Indonesia’s fleet expands considerably.”

Didier Lux, Executive Vice President of Airbus Customer Services says: “Airbus is very pleased to this sign this partnership with GMF AeroAsia. This long term sharing experience will harness our respective strengths and will not only benefit both our customers, but will also help accelerate Airbus’ participation in the growing Indonesian market. This also demonstrates how Airbus is applying its vision regionalisation to be close to its customers.”

Airbus is the world’s leading commercial aircraft manufacturer producing the most modern and efficient airliners in every category, from the single-aisle A320 Family up to the world’s largest airliner, the A380. Airbus has design and manufacturing facilities in France, Germany, the UK, and Spain as well as subsidiaries in the US, China, Japan and in the Middle East. Headquartered in Toulouse, France, Airbus is an EADS company.