Capital A’s MRO subsidiary Asia Digital Engineering has received Part 145 maintenance organization approval from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency. The approval is its first from a regulator outside the Asia-Pacific region.

According to Asia Digital Engineering (ADE) CEO Mahesh Kumar, the approval will enable the company “to provide industry leading aircraft maintenance support in Asia Pacific and beyond.” It already holds maintenance organization approvals from regulators in Malaysia, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Cambodia, Singapore and Nepal.

The new approval should boost ADE’s plans to increase maintenance work for AirAsia Group’s airlines. At Aviation Week’s MRO Australasia conference in May, Adnan Mansur, head of digital and innovation services at ADE, said the company was handling about 40% of the group’s heavy maintenance work and plans to eventually take over all of its base maintenance requirements.

Helping to accommodate growth plans will be a new 380,000 ft.² maintenance hangar at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. ADE says the new hangar, which will be able to accommodate 14 narrowbodies simultaneously, is expected to be complete by the first half of 2024. The facility will also be able to handle widebody aircraft.

In addition to hangar space, the facility will also feature dedicated component workshops and a digital product development center. Earlier this year, ADE launched two new digital products for parts procurement and aircraft health monitoring. It is planning several new developments for both products.

In January, ADE opened a new MRO hangar facility at Senai International Airport in Johor Bahru, Malaysia. During its opening ceremony on Jan. 18, Kumar noted that ADE plans to expand the facility into a training school for aviation professionals and aerospace engineering students.

ADE plans to hire 500-600 workers in 2024 to meet growing capacity, including aircraft technicians and engineers.