The first recruits of SR Technics are due in Zurich today to begin their three-month training period.
Considering that the announcement of the SRT deal was announced only last November and that the site and the facility are still being set up, this first concrete step signifies the rapid take-up of the deal.
This was announced as Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi visited the Mubadala Aerospace headquarters in Abu Dhabi.
Mubadala, the holding company of the ruling family in this emirate, is the parent company of SRT.
It would also seem that Mubadala wants to reach deals with Malta well beyond the aircraft servicing level.
Dr Gonzi was in fact informed that before he reached the Mubadala HQ, they already had talks with Malta University Services of the University of Malta regarding opportunities for training in aerospace sciences. The emirates require many people with the skill sets to enable the emirate develop its airline business. Etihad may be the youngest airline in the region but its ambitions are huge. Hence the urgency to train as many youngsters and to get them excited about avionics.
“We know what you have done,” Dr Gonzi was told, “and we want to learn from you.”
In further talks with the Prime Minister, it emerged that Mubadala is interested in much more than aircraft servicing. It is also very interested in the emerging technologies with regard to aircraft materials. Together with a Los Angeles company, a joint venture is being created to start production in the third quarter of the year. Among the companies that are interested, there are GE, Airbus, and Boeing.
One other area of development that is being actively investigated is aircraft leasing. Mubadala and Etihad are investigating the possibility of leasing planes’ engines, which could be an attractive idea to airlines all around.
In his reply, Dr Gonzi pointed out at other possibilities. Apart from R&D, in which not just the university but also MCAST and MCSD would be interested, there are also wide possibilities regarding airline financing, back office work and aircraft registration.
Among the ideas that are being exchanged in person-to-person meetings by the delegates, there is, for instance, an idea being suggested by World Aviation Group, an Air Malta joint venture with Cassar Aviation which has a call centre which at present does work for Air Malta, Afriqiyah, Luxair and Air Italy, apart from back office work for Air Malta.
Considering that Etihad at present uses three call centres – in Abu Dhabi, India and Germany, the last one of which is expensive and ‘not really delivering’, WAG is proposing to carry out Etihad’s call centre work in Europe.
An even more fascinating idea regards Etihad’s need and interest in landing slots and routes. Since Malta has an unused landing slot in Canada, an idea that is being floated would regard direct flights by Etihad to Malta and onward to Canada through a code-sharing idea. This would resurrect intercontinental flights from Malta which were cut short when Balkan Airways stopped using Malta as a stopover on their way to North America.