Magnetic expands into south-east Asia

Estonian MRO provider opens a Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia office (Magnetic MRO)

Magnetic MRO, the Estonian provider of specialist technical care for aircraft, has announced the opening of a new representative office in Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia. It will concentrate on developing new customers and partners in the entire south-east Asia region, says the company.

The new Kuala Lumpur-based team will focus on the introduction of Magnetic MRO’s services in the local market by developing technical training modules and engineering and department of aviation solutions for Malay, Indonesian, Singaporean, Thai, Vietnamese and other aircraft operators and maintenance organisations in the region. In addition, Magnetic MRO will also provide local market players with scheduled and aircraft-on-the-ground spare parts supplies.

“The Asia Pacific [region] is the fastest growing market in aviation – both in terms of aircraft fleets and MRO services. Having well-established operations in Europe and being already present in the Chinese MRO market, makes this a natural decision to start the development in yet another direction: south-east Asia,” insists Inga Douglas, chief commercial officer at Magnetic MRO.

Magnetic plans to eventually expand its range of services to include a pallet of services embracing line maintenance, engine management, asset management, aircraft teardown, aircraft transition management, power-by-the-hour programmes and other products.

Currently, Magnetic MRO (formerly Air Maintenance Estonia) operates in almost 30 locations worldwide, including Miami (USA), London (UK), Amsterdam (Netherlands), Tallinn (Estonia), Dubai (UAE), Guangzhou (China), and now in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia).  The company is 100 per cent-owned by China’s Guangzhou Hangxin Aviation Technology.

In the meantime, at its Tallinn base maintenance hub in Estonia, Magnetic has recently carried out its 600th C-Check. “Back in 2002, we had only one bay providing about a dozen heavy maintenance checks per year. Today, we have multiple bays with automated docking stations, an RFID tooling system, and other tech-oriented solutions that are empowered by LEAN processes,” points out Sergey Shkolnik, base maintenance director of Magnetic MRO. “This allows us to conduct up to 50 C-Checks a year, supporting aircraft operators and owners from across Europe,’’ he adds.