National carrier of Bahrain, Gulf Air, has announced that it will insource its fleet technical management (FTM) responsibility.

The move which is a major milestone in Gulf Air’s history, underscores the airline’s engineering expertise and technical capabilities to undertake base-maintenance of its entire fleet completely in-house, bringing in a range of cost-saving and operational benefits for the airline, a statement from an official said.

Samer Majali, CEO, Gulf Air, said: “This is truly a major milestone for Gulf Air as we take charge of full fleet technical management (FTM) responsibility, demonstrating our strong in-house technical expertise. Insourcing is a key part of our overall business strategy as it allows us to refocus on our engineering and maintenance systems and processes so that we achieve technical self-reliance and self-sufficiency.”

“This move allows us full control over the quality of aircraft servicing and safety standards, operational reliability, a robust aircraft maintenance system, fleet planning and availability. We are proud now that we have our own team of qualified engineers and highly skilled technicians with several years of experience, who will now take over the responsibility. I also see potential opportunities for more, technically qualified Bahrainis to join the national carrier in the near future.”

“In addition, by insourcing, we are significantly reducing the maintenance cost, resulting in much-wanted cost-savings to the company which is very important at this juncture. We aspire that soon Bahrain has its own full-fledged MRO entity that will not only take care of Gulf Air fleet’s maintenance but also undertake fleet maintenance for other airlines and thus make Bahrain an aviation MRO hub in the region,” Majali added.

Jamal Hashim, director, engineering & airworthiness, Gulf Air, said: “This is truly a demonstration of our in house engineering expertise that has been behind Gulf Air achieving several milestones in the past such as the Part 145 (Maintenance Organisation) and continued airworthiness management organisation (Camo) approvals.”

“We will now be able to improve further our safety and airworthiness standard through tighter control and improved compliance that will also lead to a greater aircraft technical dispatch reliability, on-time performance and higher aircraft availability. This would mean our aircraft are even better in terms of safety and quality, our fleet will be on-time, every time, and we will be able to operate more frequencies due to higher availability of aircraft,” Hashim said.

Gulf Air will now be perform all aircraft maintenance on its own, up to and including A-checks. It will also fully manage its Camo functions which include, engineering support services, aircraft systems and propulsion engineering, technical planning, airworthiness review and maintenance of fleet technical records.

In addition, the airline will also fully manage its inventory technical management (ITM) covering materials planning, warehouse and logistics, warranty and repair management and, technical procurement. – TradeArabia News Service