Russian carrier IKAR Airlines, operating as Pegas Fly, has signed a five-year contract with AerFin for the latter to support its fleet of seven Embraer E-Jets with its ‘Beyond Pool’ component programme.
The programme offers a fixed cost solution to support the component requirements of the seven E190s and will be supported out of AerFin’s London Gatwick facility, together with the provision of a significant inventory holding at the main operating base at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport.
IKAR follows other airlines such as BA CityFlyer, which joined the support programme in February this year, signing a seven-year partnership agreement with AerFin covering all component support requirements for its E-Jet fleet.
The Russian Far Eastern airline is based at Krasnoyarsk Yemelyanovo Airport and operates as Pegas Fly, operating scheduled passenger services from Krasnoyask, as well as charter services on behalf of Pegas Touristik. The carrier is operated by IKAR Airlines LLC and maintains IKAR Airlines as the carrier’s legal name.
AerFin said that IKAR opened a competitive tender and selected it based on its quality support solution combined with its competitive price point. “This solution provides supply certainty to IKAR Airlines, reducing the operating cost of its E-Jet fleet, while maintaining high-quality component and engineering support,” it stated.
Kubilay Akpinar from the airline commented, “We are very happy to finalise the E-jet component support tender process with AerFin. With the support of our new partner, we continue to provide smooth, reliable and on-time service for our customers.”
AerFin’s airframe director, Chris Hooley, added, “We are delighted that IKAR Airlines has elected to join British Airways in utilising our BeyondPool component programme solution. We have worked very closely with the team at IKAR to develop a programme which adequately meets their operational requirements and look forward to playing our part in the successful introduction of a new fleet type into the IKAR operation.
“This is another significant step for us in bringing AerFin’s growing portfolio of support services and solutions to the market. AerFin is evolving very quickly as we focus on anticipating the requirements of our global customer base and delivering a strategy which offers value to airlines. The industry remains strongly competitive over cost and quality of delivery and we continue to see great growth opportunity in supporting the E-Jet global platform.”
Last week two E190s were delivered to IKAR’s Pegas Fly by Nordic Aviation Capital (NAC) on lease, with the airline becoming Russia’s third E-Jet operator, having previously received two other E190s from NAC in April and May.
