Lufthansa Technik is exploring the possibility of another base maintenance facility in the Asia-Pacific, to take advantage of growing narrowbody MRO demand.
Speaking to FlightGlobal at the MRO Asia-Pacific conference in Singapore, Gerald Steinhoff, senior vice president of corporate sales in Asia-Pacific, says that LHT's Philippines unit "is very full" and that the company needs more capacity "especially on the narrowbody side."
On the additional capacity, Steinhoff says LHT has had "very fruitful talks with potential partners, who are looking at MRO work with around 600,000 man hours a year".
He explains that this translates into having "a few maintenance lines" – a challenge that LHT "is confident" of filling up.
"It helps to have a partner who brings a certain base load with them," he adds.
Should the new base maintenance facility be established in Asia-Pacific, it will add to LHT's seven other such facilities worldwide, which are centrally controlled in LHT's headquarters in Hamburg.
"We believe that the secret to future success is being close to the customer."
Steinhoff adds that LHT saw 23% revenue growth from Asia-Pacific in 2016. It expects another year of double digit growth in 2017.
"We are currently on a path of extending our market position, and are looking at both organic and inorganic growth. We still have market demand from customers that want more from us, but we cannot serve them (due to lack of capacity)."
Source: Cirium Dashboard
