Kenya Airways is outsourcing heavy C-checks on its fleet of Boeing 787 twinjets to Amman-based MRO provider Joramco.
The SkyTeam carrier made a decision earlier this year not to invest in heavy-maintenance capability on 787s, and in August began a competitive process to outsource this work, says chief executive Sebastian Mikosz. "With only nine aircraft it will be cheaper and more efficient," he says. "We also did not see a market for 787 [maintenance] around Africa."
The first 787 will arrive for a C-check at Joramco in January; all seven will be inducted by September 2020. The 787 deal follows Kenya Airways’ decision to use Joramco for five out-of-phase 787 checks in August and C-checks on two 737-800s.
As Kenya Airways outsources its 787 work it is refocusing its MRO activities on growing its Embraer 190 and De Havilland Dash 8-400 maintenance operations, says Mikosz. It has 15 Embraer 190s in service, while subsidiary Jambojet has seven Dash 8-400s, Cirium fleets data shows.
Joramco is the engineering arm of Dubai Aerospace Enterprise.
