Satair Group takes over Safran A340-500/600 Nacelle support

Under the agreement Satair Group has now assumed responsibility from Safran Nacelles of its entire supply chain for the aircraft’s nacelles and will carry out these support duties until there are no more aircraft flying.

Currently there are some 90 A340-500/600s flying today and Per Iversen, Director, Business Development for Satair Group, states:

“It is still a relatively young aircraft with a lot of life left. As a four-engine aircraft it is obviously less fuel efficient than a twin, but the current oil price level means that the eventual retirement of some of these aircraft will only occur on a gradually declining basis. We see this aircraft type remaining in service beyond 2030.”

He added: “We have support obligations on behalf of Airbus both for in-production and out of production aircraft and hold many spare parts/airframe parts to enable us to support these aircraft for many years to come.”

Safran is one of the worlds’ two leading engine nacelle manufacturers and designs and builds nacelles and nacelle components for a wide variety of jet aircraft including mainline jets for Airbus and Boeing, as well as for regional jets and business jets for manufacturers such as Bombardier, Dassault, Embraer, Gulfstream and Sukhoi.

The move to outsource the A340-500/600 engine nacelle support came as a result of an initiative from Satair Group several years ago which led to serious discussions leading to the signature of a MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) in December 2016.

Per continued: “We realised that Safran wanted to unburden itself from certain programme support areas, such as supply chain and warehouse management, for out of production aircraft and shift, resources, cash and focus towards its current development programmes. We have a unique model to acquire business such as this.

“Once the MoU had been signed, Satair Group took ownership of the nacelle spare parts with Safran executing orders on our behalf until such time as the inventory had been moved from Safran Nacelles Paris support centre to Copenhagen. As of April 24 2017,we commenced direct service to customers.”

Operators of A340-500/600s will benefit from a reduction in their supplier base and the ability to pool more parts through Satair Group’s efficient supply chain and global distribution.

This new deal comes only several months after the Group’s first success in this specialised market segment with an exclusive distribution deal for Pratt & Whitney PW4000 100-inch engine thrust reverser spare parts.