As well as redundancies, the company are also hoping to save money by outsourcing some jobs in ground maintenance and catering from Belfast city airport to external companies.

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The batteries are not essential during flight as they are mainly used on the ground during maintenance activity, Sinnett said, such as providing navigation lights and braking while the airplane is towed.

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Alitalia's trick this time seems to turn partly on spinning off non-flight operations, such as ground handling and maintenance, into a separate company called Alitalia Servizi.

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It probably makes more money from its interests in airline catering (in which it owns 20% of world market), ground handling, maintenance and air cargo than it does from actually flying.

ECONOMIST: Flying in circles

During this week, at the Paris Air Show, Mitsubishi Aircraft and Boeing Corp. signed an agreement under which Boeing ground crews will provide maintenance support for MRJ aircraft on a global basis.

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Despite more than two million troops in uniform - not counting the US military - Nato has struggled, at times desperately, to sustain a deployment of 25, 000 to 40, 000 troops, not just in boots on the ground, but in crucial support assets such as helicopters, transport aircraft, maintenance, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and much more.

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The Pentagon report concluded that KBR failed to ground a water pump at the building, and the company did not report improperly grounded equipment during routine maintenance.

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