Codeshare partners Etihad Airways and Air New Zealand have signed a wide-ranging agreement to provide reciprocal line maintenance services in Melbourne, Australia, and Los Angeles in the USA.

Etihad Airways will soon perform all scheduled and non-scheduled line maintenance on Air New Zealand aircraft in Melbourne at its Tullamarine engineering facility.  In return, Air New Zealand is already performing full line maintenance for Etihad Airways in Los Angeles.

The maintenance services to be performed in Melbourne and Los Angeles may include transit, daily and weekly checks, scheduled engineering services and fault repairs for the aircraft systems and passenger cabins.

Etihad Airways started a daily non-stop service between Abu Dhabi and Los Angeles on 1 June 2014, using a three-class Airbus A340-500 aircraft.  From mid-July a Boeing 777-200LR will operate the route.  Air New Zealand has operations from Los Angeles to Auckland, London-Heathrow and Rarotonga.

Air New Zealand operates an average of five flights a day from Melbourne to Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington, as well as a seasonal service to Queenstown.

Jeff Wilkinson, Etihad Airways Senior Vice President Technical, said:  bOur successful codeshare partnership with Air New Zealand goes back three years and we are delighted to build on this foundation by working together in the technical area.

bEtihad Airwaysb Melbourne line maintenance facilities, services and personnel are world-class, and we look forward to servicing Air New Zealandbs aircraft while they perform similar line maintenance for us at their modern facility in Los Angeles.

bWe also expect this announcement to lead to further employment opportunities at our Melbourne line maintenance facility in the future.b

Air New Zealand Chief Operations Officer Bruce Parton, said: bWe look forward to working with Etihad Airways both as a customer and service provider. Our Los Angeles maintenance team currently provides services to several airlines and we are excited to add Etihad Airways to the list.b

In addition to Melbourne and Sydney, Etihad Airwaysb existing line maintenance facilities are in Chicago, Dublin, Mumbai, Lahore, London-Heathrow, Manchester and Singapore.

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