Babcock to support Qantas across Australia
Babcock has been awarded a five-year contract, with an option for a further two years, to support Qantas Group's ground support equipment (GSE) fleet at 60 locations across Australia.
Courtesy Qantas
The agreement streamlines the management of the airline’s fleet of over 10,000 Ground Service Equipment assets spread across 60 locations within Australia, including Qantas’ domestic, regional, freight, catering and engineering operations, as well as Jetstar.
Working with Qantas as its asset management partner, Babcock will deliver a programme to improve reliability of equipment and provide significant long term capability and cost benefits.
The Group already provides a range of support services at international airports, including London (Heathrow, Gatwick), Amsterdam (Schiphol) and São Paulo (Guarulhos) and most recently Rome (Fiumincino), and has extensive experience of successfully delivering fleet management services to a range of customers including the London Fire Brigade and Metropolitan Police.
Archie Bethel, Chief Executive of Babcock International Group, said: “We have a proven track record of improving the performance and reliability of our customer’s assets, whilst delivering efficiency savings. Qantas are regarded as one of the world’s leading long-distance airlines and we are very much looking forward to working with them to implement a suite of modern fleet management systems and tools which will enhance safe and effective fleet capability across all the airline’s sites.”
The Qantas contract award follows the recent announcement that Babcock International Group will establish its Australasian headquarters in Adelaide with the relocation of its Mission Critical Services and Offshore Services businesses to South Australia as part of the company’s aggressive regional growth strategy.
Babcock’s aviation businesses, Babcock Mission Critical Services Australasia and Babcock Offshore Services Australasia, will formally become part of an existing Adelaide based management team at a new site in the Adelaide Central Business District under an agreement with the Government of South Australia.
Babcock Australasia Chief Executive Officer Craig Lockhart said the new headquarters would bring together disparate parts of the company’s regional business and was a key step in its strategic growth plan for the next decade: “South Australia was the logical choice for our new Australasian headquarters, and the Babcock Mission Critical Services base, because it expands our existing presence here and centralises our helicopter operations in Australia.”