Libanet wins key Saudi airports services contract

Lebanese aircraft services company, Libanet, has signed a three year aircraft fleet services deal with Saudia Ground Services Company (SGS), the Jeddah based ground handler, which supplies services to all of Saudi Arabian airports.
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The Beirut-based company will provide a wide scope of services to all carriers at the Kingdom’s four largest airports -  Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam and Madina.
“This agreement is in line with Libanet’s vision and 2011 strategic decision to expand in the Saudi market”, said Tony Saade, CEO and founder of Libanet.
In a statement, Libanet said the agreement comes at a time when Saudi Arabia is seeing flights to its country soar, in line with GACA (General Authorities of Civil Aviation) long-term strategy to build and renovate its domestic and international hubs to accommodate a projected three years’ traffic flow of 57 million passengers.
“Services outsourcing in the aviation industry is a growing trend given the restricted Labour Laws whether for airports facilities, management activities or aircrafts related services, which all represent the core activity of the company”, v Saade said.
The contract signed between Libanet and SGS is a multi-task scope one where Libanet has committed to perform services to more than 320,000 aircraft  for all carriers. During July 2014, Libanet conducted trial night tests at Jeddah King Abdel-Aziz Airport for transiting flights of Saudi Airlines, as well as Turkish Airlines, Pakistan International Airways and Sudan Airways.
The contract takes effect in January when operations are launched in Riyadh- King Khaled Airport (KKIA), covering 55 commercial carriers, or the equivalent of 100,000 flights a year at KKIA.
Libanet will be virtually doubling its workforce to take up the contract. It currently employs around 1300 employees and would need to hire around 1200 more.
The  Aircraft services include cabins management, i.e. interior cabin cleaning, exterior aircraft washing, in addition to a new service the company is developing: Lavatory Service and Potable water services to shortern grounding time flights.
Aircraft services can range from a 10 minutes transit cleaning that is a particularly time sensitive process, to a full 8 hours deep cleaning performed mostly in the hangar and where all inside aircraft details are meticulously attended to.
Libanet services over 40 airline companies and four international airports in the MENA region already. In 2013, Libanet won a contract to provide airline services to NasAir in both Jeddah and Riyadh stations and in 2012, it was re-selected as the preferred bidder for the facilities management in the new Queen Alia International Airport in Amman, after servicing the old terminal for three years. The three airports serviced by Libanet were on the top 10 list of Skytrax’ Middle East Best Airports in 2014.
 “This new agreement for Libanet is a further testimonial of the quality standards the company provides, as well as of our expertise in the vast aviation field and the reputation we built for ourselves across the years in the International airports of the Middle East region,” Saade said.