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Thales opens maintenance, repair and sales facility at Heathrow
IFEC specialist Thales, has a new address at London Heathrow, closer to some of its airline customers. This facility, located within British Airways' Distribution Centre, is a base for providing a wide range of services such as turnkey maintenance, onboard services and repairs. It is also the home of the company’s local sales and marketing team, who support the needs of both short and long-haul carriers in the UK and Ireland.
Specific capabilities at this facility include EASA Part 145 maintenance capability, parts logistics management, spare provisioning, repair, media management and maintenance planning and scheduling. There are currently 12 members of staff at the facility, with room to accommodate 18.
The catalyst for this new Thales facility is the strategic relationship Thales has with British Airways. In 2008, British Airways agreed on a multi-million pound deal to purchase the Thales TopSeries IFEC system for its new delivery and next-generation aircraft, and the Heathrow facility will offer local support.
Later in 2011, Thales and British Airways expanded their partnership by signing a Component Repair Agreement, which allows the airline to do repairs on Thales equipment, both for British Airways and other airlines. The result of this arrangement speeds up repair turn-around times and reduces repair cost. This facility is located in Llantrisant in Wales.
Garry Copeland, director of engineering at British Airways stated at the opening of the facility, "We have never embedded another company into the BA organisation before. We have 95.9% releiability so far on the 10 aircraft we have equipped with Thales systems. We will soon have 60-plus aircraft equipped, including 777-200s, 777-300s, A380s, and 787s. All our 777s will be fitted with Thales systems by end of spring 2014. We are also looking into fitting out our 747s as they are the workhorse of our fleet and we are looking at options for connectivity. Those aircraft will be retired in 2022 so they will be running for a while yet."
Asked whether British Airways will fit in-flight mobile phone capability such as Virgin Atlantic's AeroMobile system, Copeland stated, "Our customers are not crying out for voice capability.”
At the new Heathrow facility, Thales will maintain demonstration systems of its latest technologies for visitors to evaluate, including the recently announced TopSeries AVA wireless streaming media solution.
“Our IFEC operations around the world are growing with the UK as a main focus for Thales. This new facility reinforces the expanding relationship Thales has with British Airways,” added Marion Broughton, head of Thales UK’s aerospace business.
For more news about Thales' plans for the future, visit our Web Exclusives section or click here.
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