Monarch Aircraft Engineering’s (MAEL) Birmingham Airport maintenance facility today
celebrates a highly successful first 12 months of operation, having completed over
1,000 aircraft maintenance events for 15 different airlines
MAEL engineers at the facility, which opened on 26 November, 2013, have completed
a variety of aircraft maintenance events and inputs in the past year, for customers
including AirTanker, DHL, easyJet, Estonian Air, flybe, flydubai, Jet2.com, Monarch,
Norwegian, Thomas Cook, Thomson Airways, Titan Airways and Twinjet
The facility’s versatility coupled with MAEL’s breadth of engineering skill have enabled
it to carry out over 210,000 hours of maintenance on aircraft ranging in size from
50 seats to over 300, including the Bombardier Q400, Embraer 175/195, A320 family,
A330, Boeing 737NG, 757, 767 and 787 "dreamliner"
Highlights of the past year include maintenance on a Norwegian Boeing 787 "dreamliner",
for which MAEL is a Boeing GoldCare provider, simultaneous maintenance on three Monarch
Airlines Airbus A300 aircraft and S4C work on a Titan Airways Boeing 767
Ian Bartholomew, Interim Managing Director of Monarch Aircraft Engineering, says: "The
first year of operations at our Birmingham facility have exceeded our plans, with maintenance
for more aircraft from a wider range of operators than we had anticipated"
"In addition to the work for Monarch Airlines, our ever-increasing amount of third party
maintenance for other operators now accounts for the vast majority of our operation
– both in Birmingham at our other facilities in Luton and Manchester"
Since the opening of the 110,000 sq ft state-of-the-art facility, MAEL has created jobs for
over 150 skilled engineers, and this number is set to increase further in 2015 with a further
intake of trainee engineers through MAEL’s renowned apprenticeship scheme
MAEL’s Birmingham facility can accommodate almost every aircraft type in its two bays. It
incorporates industry-leading design and build standards and is one of the first to have the
capacity for Boeing 787 "dreamliner" maintenance, with sufficient capacity for other wide body
aircraft, such as the Boeing 777, 747 and Airbus A350.
It is large enough to accommodate two Boeing 777-300ER aircraft or 10 narrow-body aircraft
and contains a number of component-repair and back shops. The vast building, covering around
2.5 acres is big enough to house four full size football pitches, 2,400 Minis or 450 double decker buses
Wednesday 26 November 2014 |