Future of Industry: Mubadala looks to TS&S for aircraft engine plans

Mubadala Development is focusing its aircraft engine strategy on its home-grown Turbine Services & Solutions in Al Ain.

TS&S was carved out of Abu Dhabi Aircraft Technologies three years ago when the latter, which services airframes and components, was sold to Etihad Airways, leaving it to concentrate on engines and exShow more

Mubadala Development, Abu Dhabi’s strategic investment company, is focusing its aircraft engine strategy on its home-grown Turbine Services & Solutions (TS&S), having shifted its emphasis in the summer last year.

TS&S was carved out of Abu Dhabi Aircraft Technologies (Adat) three years ago when the latter, which services airframes and components, was sold to Etihad Airways, leaving it to concentrate on engines and expand into power-plant turbine servicing.

Mubadala had also acquired the Zurich-based SR Technic 10 years ago with a view to building a global presence in maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) for the aircraft industry, but in a switch in strategy sold 80 per cent of that company, which ranks among the world’s top 20 MROs, to China’s HNA Aviation last summer.

In July, Mubadala said it had partnered Rolls-Royce to build an advanced maintenance centre at the Nibras Aerospace Park in Al Ain by 2021 that would be able to service 150 of Rolls- Royce’s Trent XWB jet engines a year, which came on top of plans to start manufacturing engine components for GEnx engines.

The shift in focus to Abu Dhabi has coincided with an aggressive marketing campaign by TS&S to win market share outside its core Etihad business, said the company’s chief executive, Abdul Khaliq Saeed.

“It plays into the long-term vision of Abu Dhabi and Mubadala to turn Abu Dhabi into a regional hub for the aerospace industry,” he said.

“The beauty of [the Al Ain expansion] is that part of it will be manufacturing parts of the engine to go on any other airline in the world, expanding the customer base just as Strata is doing today. We will be playing that sort of role as well and that’s huge for Abu Dhabi.”

TS&S currently employs about 340 people running two lines in what is described as a “hospital service” for GEnx engines. But a further 700 jobs are expected to be created by expanding into a full-service shop at the Nibras park when it is fully operational.

The expansion with the two engine makers, as with the deals Strata has struck with Airbus and Boeing, has been made possible by leveraging the phenomenal growth of the two main UAE airlines, Emirates and Etihad Airways, as buyers of aircraft.

Rolls-Royce forecast that the region will have the world’s largest concentration of Trent 700 engines, with one-fifth of the 1,600 operated by airlines in the region, including the 62 A350s to be operated by Etihad.

But TS&S is currently the only MRO for the Trent 700s that is not part of the Rolls-Royce network and has been looking to win business, especially in Asia, by offering bespoke services that are more flexible than some of the bigger competitors, such as Lufthansa or MTU.

“We’ve just won our first contract from Sri Lanka by offering a more flexible service than the normal 10-year contract the airlines get locked into, so that is a door opener,” said Mr Saeed.

He said TS&S has picked up business from airlines in the sub-Continent, including Air India and Indigo, and is currently focused on new business in Indonesia.

It has also won business farther afield, from Onur in Turkey against domestic competitors there, as well as from Monarch in the United Kingdom.

It is in the process of expanding its business footprint to include the South American operator Latam Airlines, which is based in Las Condes, Chile.

“If you see what we’ve won over the last couple of years it’s great from where we were, especially when we think we are competing against the giants,” said Mr Saeed.

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