G

aruda Maintenance Facility (GMF) AeroAsia, a subsidiary of national flag carrier Garuda Indonesia, aims to attract more clients for its aircraft maintenance services after receiving international recognition from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

The new FAA status would open up the company'€™s maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) business to the wider market, said GMF president director Richard Budihadianto.

He is targeting for the number of third-party aircraft maintained by GMF to increase to 40 percent of its total business, from 30 percent at present. Aircraft owned by parent company Garuda Indonesia account for the remainder of the company'€™s maintenance works.

An FAA audit carried out between Jan. 22-26 resulted in the approval of GMF as a low-risk aircraft maintenance company, an improvement from the company'€™s previous medium-risk status.

The company also received European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) approval for its GMF Design Approval Organization (DOA) in November 2014.

'€œA lot of foreign operators have asked whether the facility has been approved by EASA or FAA,'€ he told reporters.

Located at the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, Banten, west of Jakarta, GMF boasts four hangars and other facilities over nearly 100 hectares of land managed by the company.

It also operates the world'€™s biggest narrow body hangar called Hangar 4, which can serve up to 16 aircraft.

Richard said GMF would expand its capacity by optimizing the use of its existing hangars and building more hangars in the future. However, he did not elaborate on the details.

Hangar 1 would be used only for third-party aircraft, while Hangar 3 would be used only for wide-body aircraft and Hangar 4 would become fully operational, he added.

The efforts are expected to optimize GMF'€™s business while at the same time netting more third-party clients through contracts that will be sought at the Singapore Air Show to be held a couple of weeks from now.

The increase in third-party contracts is also expected to make the company reach US$368 million in revenue this year, a 21 percent increase from last year'€™s $304 million and higher than its $282 million target.

'€œFor the bottom line, we expect to get $50 million [in net profits] this year,'€ Richard said.

With the current Open Sky policy opening up Southeast Asia'€™s aviation industry, effective following the 2015 implementation of the ASEAN Economic Community, GMF plans to bring more of the region'€™s aircraft to the facility, as well as open a facility in another country.

'€œI hope we will open a facility abroad in the next two years. It will be in Asia or the Middle East,'€ he said.

Meanwhile, Garuda Indonesia welcomed two more new aircraft on Monday, including an Airbus A330-300, the first of its kind to be received this year, as well as a Boeing 777-300ER the company ordered in 2013.

The company plans to receive 23 new aircraft this year, including eight Airbus A320 for its low-cost arm Citilink.

Garuda president director Arif Wibowo said that the new planes would help the company expand its medium and long haul flights this year.