ENGINEERING Holding have sealed an agreement with Russian start-up airline Azimut for maintenance of the operator’s Sukhoi Superjet 100 fleet (SSJ 100; produced by Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Company). The carrier is scheduled to launch operations in September, and the maintenance will be done at its base Rostov-on-Don airport (IATA: ROV) where ENGINEERING Holding’s subsidiary S 7 ENGINEERING opened a dedicated SSJ100 line station in July this year.

Until recently S7 ENGINEERING provided SSJ 100 maintenance only at its facilities at Domodedovo Airport (Moscow) and in Mineralnye Vody. However, its agreement with Azimut covers more than maintenance of its fleet. It also includes transfer of experience with SSJ 100 that S 7 ENGINEERING has accumulated to the new carrier’s freshly created in-house maintenance department.

S7 ENGINEERING received its certificate of compliance with Federal Aviation Regulations issued by Russia’s Transport Ministry on September 25, 2015 (the so called FAP-285) in February last year. According to this certificate, the provider is approved for all types of line and base maintenance for SSJ 100, as well as component repairs for the type.

With line maintenance not factored in, from the launch of its services until now S7 ENGINEERING has performed 24 periodic maintenance checks on SSJ 100s for IrAero, aviation department of Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situation, Gazprom Avia, Yamal Air Transport Company and other operators of the type.

“S7 Engineering employs a sufficient number of staff to cater for SSJ 100 line maintenance and base maintenance on two aircraft simultaneously. Having an in-house training center is definitely a plus, because we constantly train new specialists and upgrade the existing staff,” ENGINEERING Holding’s sales director Nikita Belykh says.

S7 ENGINEERING has created a pool of spare parts and components to operate maintenance checks independently of the OEM, up to C-checks. It also has contracts in place with the line-up of SSJ 100 component suppliers.