Airbus has signed their first Flight Hour Services (FHS) contract in North America with JetBlue for their A220 fleet. The FHS will cover long-term Airbus components for the 70 A220s that JetBlue has on order.
On Thursday (June 3, 2021), Airbus announced that they have signed their first North American Flight Hour Services (FHS) contract with JetBlue for their A220 fleet. JetBlue began A220 operations in April 2021, and currently has 70 aircraft on order. The FHS will cover long-term Airbus components maintenance service for the carrier’s entire A220 fleet. The “maintenance-by-the-hour” contract includes material services with onsite parts stock management, along with access to Airbus’ parts pool, engineering and repair services.
In Thursday’s announcement, Airbus’ Head of Customer Services, North America, Dominik Wacht, said,
“As for all Airbus aircraft programmes, A220 customers are benefitting from Airbus’ renowned maintenance FHS programme. We are extremely proud to welcome JetBlue as our first FHS customer in North America and be able to further increase its A220 fleet’s availability in support of traffic resuming.”
Also commenting on the new FHS contract, JetBlue’s Vice President of Technical Operations, Bill Cade, said,
“With a substantially lower direct operating cost over other aircraft in our fleet from both fuel and non-fuel savings, the A220 also helps further reset JetBlue's maintenance costs well into the decade. Airbus’ FHS solution helps support our long-term financial goals as they relate to maintenance and supports our ability to offer low fares and award-winning service to more JetBlue customers.”
JetBlue becomes the third A220 airline operator and first North American operator to contract for Airbus’ FHS service. To date, over 150 A220s have been delivered to nine airlines and are currently operating on routes in Asia, North America, Europe and Africa. Over the past six months, Airbus has signed eleven FHS contracts with operators worldwide.
Source: Airbus