October 30 (SeeNews) - Bulgarian Aviation Group, which owns three local airlines, expects to agree on a joint venture with an unnamed French airplane maintenance company within a few months, the company CEO said on Tuesday, after the signing of a similar agreement with a German company.
The Bulgarian company, which owns Bulgaria Air, Hemus Air and Viaggio Air, on Tuesday signed a contract with Lufthansa Technik, a maintenance, repair and overhaul unit of Lufthansa, for setting up a 20:80 joint venture to provide aero maintenance services in Sofia.
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“Today’s [foreign partner] is a German one, the next one is a French one, also a leading global firm (…) We hope in the following month or two we will have a decision,” Dimitar Pavlov told SeeNews on the sidelines of the signing ceremony.
He added the planned joint venture would provide maintenance services for airplane parts such as engines and landing gear.
“We [Bulgaria] can be a hub for the region for performing such technical services so this is our aim,” Pavlov said.
Pavlov said Bulgarian Aviation Group expected its three airlines to carry some 1.5 million passengers this year, up about 15%.
Bulgarian Aviation Group was previously named Balkan Hemus Group. Earlier this year it bought the country's flag carrier Bulgaria Air for 13 million levs ($9.6 million/6.7 million euro) from the government and pledged to invest 82.1 million euro in the company over the next five years.
Bulgaria Air, Hemus Air and Viaggio Air control more than 30% of the air transportation market in the country, which joined the European Union in January.
(1 euro = 1.95583 Bulgarian levs)