By Kao Shih-ching / Staff reporterAerospace Industrial Development Corp (AIDC, 漢翔航空工業) yesterday signed a letter of intent with state-owned China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) as it moves to diversify its business into aircraft seating and components maintenance. AIDC, the nation’s largest civil and military aircraft manufacturer, can now provide commercial airline seats after it received a letter of design approval in May from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for its three-abreast seats, AIDC chairman Hu Kai-hung (胡開宏) told reporters. AIDC would work hard on a bid for about 600 economy-class seats that CAL needs as it retrofits two older Boeing 747s it plans to sell, Hu said. Although the revenue generated by the CAL seating deal would not be much, it would demonstrate AIDC’s ambition to enter this market, Hu said. The company would also discuss what maintenance services it could provide to CAL, even though the airline has its own maintenance department, he said.

Source: Taipei Times November 28, 2019 15:56 UTC