New AirAsia Group MRO unit may save $240mn a year in costs

AirAsia Group has created a new MRO company, Asia Digital Engineering, a wholly-owned subsidiary that will provide engineering services for the group’s airlines as well as for other airlines in the region. The new entity will broaden the company’s existing expertise in aircraft engineering, group chief executive Tony Fernandes said in a statement on September 9. It will provide “numerous efficiencies,” he added, and draw on the group’s experience in maintaining a fleet of over 250 A320 Family and A330 aircraft., “All AirAsia engineers and MRO assets will be consolidated to provide a centralised technical support service for our fleet of aircraft, and potentially for other commercial airlines in the near future also,” he elaborated. Based at the group’s headquarters at Kuala Lumpur Int’l, the subsidiary will provide line maintenance, engineering support, component and warehouse services, and digital and innovation services for the fleet of aircraft in the group, which consists of AirAsia and AirAsia X in Malaysia together with subsidiaries in India, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, and Thailand. Targeting a 10% reduction in maintenance costs, Asia Digital Engineering will be “leveraging the latest technologies in automation, big data analytics, predictive maintenance, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to effectively increase productivity and efficiency,” the statement said.