KONE, a global leader in the escalator and elevator industry, has acquired ASBA Mantenimientos S.L. ASBA Mantenimientos is a Spanish elevator company based. It is based in Barcelona, and is one of the largest local providers of elevator repair and maintenance. The company provides new elevator and related equipment sales and installation. They also work to help safely integrate elevator systems into existing buildings that were designed without elevator shafts.  ASBA Mantenimientos has a maintenance pool of over 1,800 elevators, and has 35 employees, including all maintenance technicians.

“This acquisition strengthens KONE’s position in Spain and helps us improve our maintenance and modernization operations in the Catalonia region,” stated Eric Maziol, Area Director and EVP of West and South Europe, as well as the Middle East for KONE.

KONE’s current operations in Spain will integrate ASBA’s maintenance base and sales force.

About KONE

KONE is one of the largest elevator and escalator companies in the world, and leads the industry. The company began in 1910, and will celebrate one hundred years of operation in 2010. KONE’s main goal is to optimize people flow and movement. They constantly work to develop and install new solutions for transporting people quickly, efficiently, and safely. Comfort also plays a large role in the design process. Elevator and escalator designs by the company help reduce waiting and lines, as well as opening access to handicapped or otherwise movement limited people that cannot climb stairs.

KONE has been providing the best elevators and escalators in the industry for a century, combined with innovation and creative solutions. They help modernize even the oldest buildings, and provide much needed maintenance or upgrades for older elevator systems. KONE understands the desires and requirements of its customers and works to adapt to new technologies and developments as quickly as possible. This is one of the reasons KONE can offer such high class service in the people movement industry.

KONE reported annual net sales at EUR 4.7 billion for 2009. They employ around 34,000 employees in all of their worldwide branches, and have plans to continue growing in the new decade. KONE will continue to strive to lead the industry in safety, innovation, and competitive elevator and escalator solutions. Class B shares for KONE are traded in Finland on NASDAQ OMX Helsinki Ltd.

India has been left outraged and appalled as an eight year old girl has been crushed to death by an escalator in the major airport of the country’s capital city. 

Jyotsna Jethani perished after an escalator in the arrivals lounge bizarrely ripped open after a passengers travel bag was caught up in it.  The horror of the incident was summed up by the Indian Times which said:  If escalators can kill in the capital of the country and that too at the airport, which is a gateway to India, things are quite bad”.  An immediate and prompt investigation has been called for the Civil Aviation Minister, with a two-member enquiry committee ordered to report back its findings on what went wrong within 24 hours. Such a speedy deadline only serves to re-emphasise the nationwide outrage which has greeted this tragedy.

The girl’s parents, obviously devastated by the horrific way they have lost their child, refused offers of compensation, saying that had the money been 50 times as much, it still would not give them back their child.  The family had arrived for a regularly scheduled flight on Monday morning, but there trip soon turned into something akin to a horror movie when there was a minor stampede on an escalator when a passenger’s bag became stuck.  In the mêlée which ensued, the young girl became trapped in what has been described as the “gaping” hole which had opened up at the bottom of the escalator. “She was flailing her legs and screaming, but I could do nothing,” the girl’s mother has tragically recalled. She went on to reminisce about how nobody would help them, stop the escalator or help to pull her out. After the panic had settled two parents were left without a daughter and India itself was left with a national tragedy.