Boeing and Kenya Airways PLC (KQ) have announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for landing gear exchange services. The announcement was made at the 2022 MRO Middle East exhibition, which is the leading aviation industry event for Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul in the region. With the landing gear exchange program, Boeing will provide nine landing gear shipsets wherever and whenever needed to support the Kenya Airways 787 fleet, enabling more efficient and cost-effective maintenance operations.
Evans Kihara, Kenya Airways Technical Director commented: “The customer is key in all our operations and this program will help us continue to offer world-class customer service as it will safeguard our operations and minimize disruptions to our guests. This allows us to plan our cash outflow in advance and at the same time enables us to work with Boeing to ensure that our network schedule integrity is achieved, bringing the much-desired predictability to our guests.”
The Boeing 787 landing gear exchange program simplifies the contracting, scheduling and management of the landing gear overhaul process. Through this program, air carriers can quickly exchange landing gears that need to be repaired or overhauled with a replacement set of certified landing gear from a dedicated resource pool maintained by Boeing. By managing all parts, engineering and technical aspects of the program, Kenya Airways will have the flexible exchange solution they need to repair and replace landing gear while lowering inventory costs. Boeing will also provide access to loaner landing gear shipsets and parts during unexpected AOG situations.
Anbessie Yitbarek, Boeing Vice President of Commercial Services Sales and Marketing added: “This is just one example of how we can bring value to our customers through solutions tailored to meet their specific needs – in this case, an increase in Kenya Airways’ 787 maintenance efficiency and cost-effectiveness. We look forward to implementing these programs with Kenya Airways, and continuing our long-standing relationship for many years to come.”