Where New Hangars Are Opening Around The Globe

FL Technics plans to build a 215,000-ft.² maintenance hangar at Punta Cana International Airport in the Dominican Republic. The company expects to open the facility that will include five maintenance bays in 2025.

DHL is investing $192 million to expand its maintenance facility at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport. The new 305,000-ft.² facility will be able to fit two Boeing 777s simultaneously and house component storage and offices. The complex is due for completion by the end of 2025.

FEAM Aero is building a second hangar at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport that should open soon. The three-bay widebody hangar includes 150,000 ft.² of hangar and backshop space, with another 5,000 ft.² of offices. It can hold aircraft as large as the Boeing 767 and is projected to cost $40.2 million. FEAM already operates a 100,000-ft.² facility at the CVG airport.

Vortex Aerospace opened a 20,000-ft.² engine maintenance facility in Roselle, Illinois, which is about 20 mi. from Chicago O’Hare International Airport. The site provides engine hospital shop visits. An AOG team based there travels to the field for on-wing repairs.

Magnetic MRO opened a 2,000-m² (21,500-ft.²⁾ line maintenance hangar in Tallinn, which gives the company 40% more line maintenance capability in the Estonian capital.

Air France Industries KLM Engineering & Maintenance inaugurated a 45,000-ft.² engine shop at Paris Orly Airport in September. The facility services new engine types such as the CFM Leap, Pratt & Whitney PW1500G and Rolls-Royce Trent XWB. The facility is scheduled to be completed in January 2024 when AFI KLM E&M’s existing shop at Orly finishes reorganizing.

EasyJet opened a four-bay narrowbody maintenance facility at Berlin Brandenburg Willy Brandt Airport on Jan. 11, 2023. The 108,000-ft.² hangar cost about €20 million ($21.5 million) and is designed for the British low-cost carrier’s Airbus A320 fleet. The carrier is operating this facility under an Austrian Air Operator Certificate.

Aviatic MRO opened a 183,000-ft.² base maintenance facility in Siauliai for Airbus A320 and A330 aircraft, as well as Boeing 737 Classic and NG aircraft. It was scheduled to become fully operational in December 2023. Aviatic opened the hangar in partnership with World Star Aviation. The facility cost is about €20 million.

Fokker Services added an 80,000-ft.² widebody aircraft MRO facility at Woensdrecht Airport in the Netherlands. The electrically powered facility includes a geothermal energy system and photovoltaic solar power on the roof.

LOT Aircraft Maintenance Services is planning a new maintenance hangar that will be capable of accommodating two widebodies or five narrowbodies at the same time. The airline plans to open the 13,000-ft.² hangar at Rzeszow-Jasionka Airport in southeast Poland in about two years. Lotams already operates five hangars near Warsaw Chopin Airport. 

Emirates announced during the Dubai Airshow in November plans to build a 1-million-m² maintenance complex that will include nine maintenance hangars and one paint hangar. Construction should start in 2024 and conclude in 2027. The cost is estimated at $950 million and coincides with the airline’s order for 100 new Boeing 777-9 and -9 aircraft.

The Mohammed Bin Rashid Aerospace Hub at Dubai South signed a memorandum of understanding on July 11 with TIM Investment to build a widebody hangar. Groundbreaking was expected to occur during the Dubai Airshow in November, but it did not, so it is not clear whether the facility will finish by the first quarter of 2025.

Etihad Engineering announced at the Dubai Airshow that it had added a 17,000-ft.² technical training facility at its Abu Dhabi International Airport facility. It includes 17 classrooms and four distance-learning rooms. It also is working with Aircraft Support Industries on two more widebody bays.

Hindustan Aeronautics plans to build a maintenance facility that will cater to Airbus A320 aircraft. The facility in Nashik is scheduled to open in November 2024.  Airbus is providing tooling and consulting on the project.

Air India opened a 54,000-ft.² engineering warehouse at Delhi Indira Gandhi International Airport in October. The new facility consolidates spare parts that were in 16 locations throughout Delhi and Mumbai into one facility.

Tarmac Aerosave, Airbus and the city of Chengdu are scheduled to open China’s first aircraft storage, dismantling and recycling facility. The 717,000-m² (7.7 million-ft.²) site is designed to store up to 125 aircraft. Satair, an Airbus company, will provide the aircraft for teardown and will distribute the used serviceable material. Tarmac Aerosave is owned one-third each by Airbus, Safran and SUEZ and operates two sites in France and one in Spain.

HAECO Xiamen broke ground and started building the world’s largest single-span hangar in January. The facility at the new Xiang’an International Airport includes 292,300 m² (3.1 million ft.²) of interior space and 284,000 m² of apron space. That includes 18 structures, including engine test bays. The hangar itself houses 12 widebody, six narrowbody and two paint bays.  When the facility powered by solar is finished in 2025, HAECO will move its MRO operation to the new airport.

MTU Maintenance Zhuhai opened an engine maintenance training facility that can instruct 100 people annually. The building in Zhuhai includes 10 stations equipped with whole engines, engine modules and practice tables.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Aero Engines expanded its engine shop in Komaki, Aichi prefecture, by 2,500 m.². That enables it to expand its maintenance capability to about 10 per month by 2026 from five or six units per month. The ultimate goal is to increase that figure to 15. The expansion, which provides a 20% increase in workspace, coincides with the addition of Pratt & Whitney PW1100G-JM engines, which power A320 aircraft.

Asia Digital Engineering, Air Asia’s maintenance company, opened a 5,000-m² hangar in Johor Bahru, Malaysia in January. The facility provides line and base maintenance, as well as component support, for Airbus A320 and A330 aircraft.

VietJet Air plans to build a maintenance facility in Vietnam to support its own fleet as well as provide third-party MRO service. Speaking at MRO Asia-Pacific, Group Chief Operating Officer Michael Hickey said the facility should open in 2026 and accommodate both narrowbody and widebody aircraft.

Air New Zealand is constructing the largest single-span timber arch hangar in the Southern Hemisphere. Hangar 4 is a 10,000-m² facility that will fit one widebody and two narrowbody aircraft. The laminated veneer lumber and cross-laminated timber arch spans 98 m and should be easier to put together than a similar steel one would be. The facility targets a New Zealand Green Building Council 4-5 Green Star rating and should be completed in 2025. 

Alliance Airlines recently opened a $60 million MRO at Rockhampton Airport in Queensland. The three-bay hangar is intended to give the airline space to insource its maintenance.