Jet Airways, India’s premier international airline and JetLite, its all-economy subsidiary, announced today the award of a Maintenance-By-the-Hour (MBH™) contract to ST Aerospace for the support of Jet Airways’ CFM56-7B engines that power Jet Airways’ and JetLite’s fleet of 67 Boeing 737 next generation aircraft. The contract is worth US$750m (about S$1050m) and is set to commence immediately.

Under the agreement, ST Aerospace’s wholly owned subsidiary, ST Aerospace Engines Pte Ltd, will provide comprehensive engines maintenance and engineering support over 10 years for Jet Airways’ 143 CFM56-7B engines, which includes the fleet operated by Jet Airways’ subsidiary, JetLite Limited. Work for both airlines will involve Total Engine Maintenance support.

The 10-year agreement was signed by Saroj K.Datta, Executive Director, Jet Airways, and Tay Kok Khiang, President, ST Aerospace in Singapore. This Maintenance Agreement is expected to provide a high standard of maintenance quality with improvement in technical reliability and longer on-wing life of the engines.

The Agreement also encompasses the commissioning of an “Engine Hospital Shop” at Jet Airways’ Hangar facility at Mumbai. The commissioning of this will enable India’s premier airline and its subsidiary to maintain and service the engines of their Boeing 737 aircraft fleet.

Said Nikos Kardassis, Chief Executive Officer, Jet Airways, “We are pleased to award ST Aerospace this engine MBH™ contract for our CFM56 engines. Having worked with ST Aerospace over the years, we appreciate the excellent quality of its maintenance support, performance levels and high dependability. We are therefore happy to extend our working relationship with ST Aerospace through this agreement. We are confident that as a leading MRO service provider, ST Aerospace will be a reliable partner as we expand our operations.”

“The award of this contract by Jet Airways and JetLite is a strong attestation of its confidence in our support for Jet Airways’ and JetLite’s maintenance needs. We are pleased that Jet Airways is happy with the level and quality of services that we have consistently provided, and appreciate the award of this contract that enables us to extend the support we provide to its operations. We are committed to building long term relationships with customers and look forward to delivering more engineering and maintenance services to help Jet Airways achieve its vision, said Tay Kok Khiang, President, ST Aerospace.

Jet Airways’ relationship with ST Aerospace began in 1993 when ST Aerospace provided component services to its Boeing 737 Classic fleet. Service support extended to airframe MRO and in 2007, to engines when the first two CFM56-7B engines were inducted. ST Aerospace has since completed more than 40 engines under a time-and-material agreement for Jet Airways’ CFM56-3 and CFM56-7B series of engines.

The award of this contract marks a significant milestone for ST Aerospace engine business. ST Aerospace started maintaining CFM engines since 1999, and today has capabilities for CFM56-3, -5B and -7B engines. ST Aerospace manages over 500 engines on the MBH™ basis as well as more engines on a time-and-material basis for a large number of airlines. It continues to grow its repertoire of services and customer base.

With the partnership with GE Aviation and CFM International announced in 2008, ST Aerospace further value-adds to the support it provides to customers through its Engine Total Support solution, leveraging the materials support and engineering data from Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM). CFM56 engines are a product of CFM International (CFM), a 50/50 joint company between Snecma (SAFRAN Group) and General Electric Company

Jet Airways currently operates a fleet of 89 aircraft, which includes 10 Boeing 777-300 ER aircraft, 12 Airbus A330-200 aircraft, 53 next generation Boeing 737-700/800/900 aircraft and 14 modern ATR 72-500 turboprop aircraft. With an average fleet age of 4.66 years, the airline has one of the youngest aircraft fleet in the world. Flights to 64 destinations span the length and breadth of India and beyond, including New York (JFK and Newark), Toronto, Brussels, London (Heathrow), Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Colombo, Bangkok, Kathmandu, Dhaka, Kuwait, Bahrain, Muscat, Doha, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Jeddah, Sharjah, Dammam and Riyadh.

JetLite is a wholly owned subsidiary of Jet Airways India Ltd. and was acquired by Jet Airways in April 2007. Positioned as an all-economy, no-frills airline, JetLite operates a fleet of 23 aircraft, which includes 16 Boeing 737 series and 7 Canadian Regional Jets 200 Series. The airline flies to 28 domestic destinations and 2 international destinations (Kathmandu and Colombo), operating over 110 flights a day, on average.