Dubai: Emirates Engineering announced on Monday an agreement with Qantas for aircraft maintenance, extending a commercial partnership already in place between Emirates airline and the Australian carrier.
Under the terms of the deal, Emirates Engineering will strip and repaint eight Qantas A380 aircraft starting March 2018 at the Emirates Aircraft Appearance Centre in Dubai.
The agreement also covers the replacement of landing gears for one Qantas A380 aircraft by Emirates Engineering in February 2018.
Mohammad Jaffar Nasser, senior vice president of engineering maintenance at Emirates Engineering, said the company is aiming to promote Dubai as a centre for Airbus A380 maintenance.
“As the largest operator of Airbus A380s with over 100 aircraft in our fleet, Emirates Engineering has built strong expertise over the years in the maintenance and repainting of this aircraft type,” he said in a statement.
“We have worked hard to create efficiencies and productivity gains across all lines of maintenance, thereby freeing capacity and allowing us to offer our services and know-how to external customers.”
Last month, Emirates announced a deal worth $16 billion (Dh58.77 billion) for 36 new Airbus A380, which will be delivered to the airline from 2020 onwards. The deal came just days after Airbus said it would have to axe its A380 production line if it does not work out a deal with Emirates as orders for the model slow down.
