Lufthansa Technik signed two MOUs with Qatar Airways valued at more than $100 million. Under the first, LHT will take over maintenance and overhaul of the V2500 engines powering Qatar's fleet of 17 A320s over the next 10 years under a Total Engine Support contract. The second agreement calls for LHT to install Rockwell Collins' Tailwind 560 for onboard live satellite television on the carrier's 15 A330s. LHT said its engineers and technicians will equip the aircraft with antennas and corresponding systems and integrate the TV function into the existing IFE system.

American Airlines yesterday said it reached an agreement in principle on a multimillion-dollar contract with Synergy Aerospace to perform heavy maintenance on 29 F100s formerly leased by American. The aircraft, which have been in storage, recently were sold to Brazil's Synergy Group, which holds controlling interest in Avianca of Colombia, OceanAir of Brazil and Wayra Peru.

Citing "a growing trend towards the outsourcing of maintenance," Airbus yesterday unveiled a Maintenance Repair & Overhaul Network consisting of 11 service providers around the world.

Enterprise resource planning systems and related software are becoming mandatory components of the maintenance, repair and overhaul supply chain at many airlines. Once the sole province of finance, human resources and management, these single-point and complex IT solutions are being acquired by carriers to cut costs and streamline MRO as well as to replace outdated and expensive-to-maintain legacy systems.