All Nippon Airways (ANA), Japan’s largest airline has extended its existing multi-year Integrated Material Services (IMS) contract with Satair for its fleet of A320/321 CEO and NEO variants to include cover for its incoming fleet of three double-deck A380s, with the first entering service from May 2019.

The service from Satair commenced in December 2017 and includes planning, sourcing, purchasing, logistics and inventory management covering an extensive amount of part numbers for the A320/321 fleet. The coverage includes all expendables materials needs of ANA’s Airbus A380. A collaborative on-site team consisting of both Airbus/Satair and ANA staff working in one office have created a truly integrated and seamless operation to deliver the service. The additional A380 IMS service is a full-scope expendable materials solution covering all Line and ‘A’ checks and pre-loading for ‘C’ Checks.

Kohei Tsuji, Vice President of Material Management of ANA Maintenance Center stated: “Satair has proven to be a great partner with their Integrated Material Services solution. We are pleased that we are able to take our partnership to the next level by including the A380 fleet into this solution.”

Adding his comments Paul Lochab, Chief Commercial Officer of Satair, said: “We are delighted to extend our IMS service offering with ANA to cover the new A380 fleet and we take this as a vote of confidence in Satair, demonstrating that we have earned ANA’s trust in the IMS service. This is the first example of an IMS customer expanding its fleet coverage, and ANA will benefit strongly from scale benefits and also Satair’s existing IMS knowledge in supporting the A380.”

Stéphane Ginoux, President of Airbus Japan said, “ANA is a long-standing and valuable customer for Airbus in Japan since they started operation of A320 in 1991. We are very pleased to see theiroperation of our A380 as the first Japanese carrier. We are ready to provide the best and comprehensive after-service solutions to ANA, together with Satair.”

IMS was introduced by Satair as a strategic initiative to respond to customers’ growing requirements for a fully flexible and integrated expendable supply solution in a collaborative approach and service for all aircraft types. With IMS, Satair is directly involved in supporting the aircraft availability, which goes well beyond a traditional customer-supplier relationship.