Jet Aviation has opened its new completions-dedicated widebody hangar at its Basel facility last Friday.
The new hangar has some 9,600m2 (103,333ft2) of space which allows it to house an Airbus A380 and a Boeing 747-8 at the same time, with room to spare for a few smaller aircraft. Jet Aviation it is one of only two such hangars in Europe, and comes at a time when the completions industry has a high demand for widebody capacity.
The hangar was built in just seven-months. “To complete such an undertaking in record time took extraordinary cooperation between suppliers, constructors and the airport,” said Jet Aviation chief executive Peter Edwards at the inauguration ceremony.
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| From left to right: Peter Edwards, CEO Jet Aviation Group, AndrÈ Wall, COO EMEA & Asia, Elie Zelouf, Senior VP Customer Relations Jet Aviation Basel, Carl Hirschmann, Vice-Chairman Jet Aviation Group and Norbert Marx, General Manager Jet Aviation Basel during the opening ceremony |
“The contribution from these individuals and entities helped to realise this project on time. This hangar marks the largest non-acquisition capital investment made by Jet Aviation in its 40-year history.”
The CHF65m facility opened with its first aircraft, a Saad Air Airbus A340-600, the first -600 VIP aircraft. “The completions industry has grown up and matured. It has reached a scale never before thought possible. The number of aircraft programmes that now contribute to the completions industry is just as high. The same is true with the number of Boeing and Airbus aircraft that are going into these VIP applications,” Edwards says.
He is confident the facility will reaffirm the company’s commitments to customers old and new. “We have a very full order book over the next four to five years. We have projects reserved out until 2016 and are even discussing projects beyond that point.
“Our customer locations have high concentrations in the Middle East but also the emerging markets such as Russia, China and India, as well as other parts of Asia,” he says.
“We cannot even begin to take on all the projects that are requested. We have to turn down projects that we want to take on because of our capacity limitations. Even with this new hangar we’re full. The completions industry is certainly sustainable over the next five to ten years,” adds Edwards.
He says using the space effectively is a priority. He says once the widebody aircraft in the current hangars are completed it will free up that space to go back to maintenance.
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