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17,000 kilometers away from Auckland, the CF6-80C2 engines are supported by MTU’s maintenance facility in Hannover.
The company realigned operations at a
breakneck pace. When it introduced Boeing
777-200ERs into service in November 2005,
it significantly changed its long-haul course,
with eight of the large twin jets today based
at Auckland. The interior of the transports,
too, saw some radical changes, the firstclass
configuration being scrapped on long
routes in favor of a new Business Premier
setup in which the seats are configured in a
herringbone layout. They extend into
absolutely flat beds 2.07 meters long and
compartmented by high vertical walls on
either side. Also, the route network was
cleared out, with unprofitable routes like that
to Singapore being canceled and new promising
destinations added, notably the new
Shanghai route. Since October 2006, Air
New Zealand has been flying around the
world. In Europe, it traditionally serves only
London Heathrow, flying to Auckland from
there via Los Angeles. Of late, it also sends a
jumbo jet every night from London to
Auckland in the opposite direction, via Hong
Kong, on a route that in flight time (21 to 24
hours) and miles is almost exactly identical.
The airline has been in business for over 60
years, surviving times good and bad. On
April 30, 1940, its predecessor company
Tasman Empire Airways (TEAL) launched flying
boat operations to Australia. In 1961,
TEAL was taken over by the government and
later renamed Air New Zealand, on April 1,
1965. In October 1989 the company was privatized
and its shares listed on the Auckland
stock exchange. After its affiliate Ansett
Australia went bust, the company in fiscal
2000/2001 posted a loss of 612 million U.S.
dollars, the largest ever incurred by a com-
pany in New Zealand. The white knight then
was the government, which took 80.2 percent
of Air New Zealand’s stock and has
been hanging on to it ever since. That
marked the beginning of the airline’s rapid
recovery. In 2002/2003, it already made
close to 100 million U.S. dollars in profits. By
now, under the leadership of its chief executive
officer Rob Fyfe, Air New Zealand has de
facto again become a serious factor in the
industry. “We were very dynamic for an airline
of our size with our strategic decisions in
the last months,” is how Rob Fyfe sees it.
The innovative Business Premier Class seats are
driving Air New Zealand’s success.
That also includes a decision, taken last year,
to close its own engine maintenance operations
in Auckland and outsource the engine
MRO work. The company’s 34 General
Electric CF6-80C2 engines, which power
part of its Boeing 747-400s and 767-300ER
fleet, plus spare engines, are now being
maintained by MTU Maintenance Hannover
some 17,000 kilometers away. Fyfe praises
the effectiveness of the cooperative effort:
“By outsourcing the work to MTU the cost of
maintaining our engines was lowered by 30
percent and the turnaround is 50 percent
quicker now.”
According to Fyfe, Air New Zealand Cargo
hauls eight to ten engines a year to Germany
in its Boeing cargo aircraft. “We would take
about 120 days per engine, MTU does it in
50 to 60 days,” says a pleased airline CEO.
“That’s mostly due to smooth logistic organization,”
explains Nils Fenske, who at MTU
Maintenance Hannover is the director sales,
Australia and Pacific Rim. Also, according to
Fenske, MTU is known for its flexibility in
spare parts provisioning, which otherwise
necessitates lead times of between one and
six months when ordering new parts. MTU
further uses a so-called flowline principle to
facilitate the teardown and reassembly of
engines, which is a tough job considering
engines contain some 30,000 individual
items. Adds Fenske: “Since we’re repairing a
lot of engine parts in our high-tech shops
and buying relatively few new parts from outside
sources, costs are bound to come down
appreciably.” He continues to say: “With its
well-known reliability and quality standard,
Minor engine work, like here on a Boeing 767, is performed
in Auckland.
Air New Zealand is our key customer in the
region.”
Already, the airline is planning ahead: Air
New Zealand is presently mulling the addition
of 23 new routes, many of which cannot
be served until 2010 and after, when the first
of the eight ordered Boeing 787-9s will be
delivered, for which the New Zealanders constitute
the launch customer. Independently
of that, Air New Zealand has largely achieved
its current goal: “We want to be market
leader on all routes we serve—and that is
already the case everywhere with the exception
of Hong Kong where Cathay Pacific still
leads,” says a proud CEO.
For additional information, contact
Nils Fenske
+49 511 7806-390
This article is available online at:
http://www.mtu.de/107ANZE
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