N3 To Add Engine Overhaul Capacity In Arnstadt Expansion

N3 Engine Overhaul Services, a specialist in Rolls-Royce engine maintenance, is targeting the overhaul of nearly 200 engines next year and plans to expand capacity at its facility in Germany over the next two years to facilitate future ramp-ups.

The Lufthansa Technik and Rolls-Royce joint venture plans to invest €150 million ($167.3 million) at the Arnstadt site, located in the Thuringia region in central Germany. N3 says the project aims to further establish it as an important European location in the global maintenance network for Rolls-Royce aircraft engines while creating hundreds of new jobs.

Over the next two years, N3 will ramp up capacity to accommodate larger overhaul volumes. It has overhauled 160 engines this year and plans to increase to nearly 200 overhauls next year, after which it expects to ramp up to 250 overhauls annually.

Construction work is set to begin in early 2024 with the expansion of the cleaning line for engine components and the extension of the building's factory hall area. It will start construction on a new logistics campus with a warehouse and delivery center in the third quarter of 2024. N3 also plans to expand the canteen area while remodeling the site’s office area.

“Our business picked up speed again very quickly in 2022 after the coronavirus years. In spring 2022, we flipped the switch from crisis to growth,” says N3 Managing Director Carsten Behrens. “N3 has enormous growth potential because the demand for engine overhauls in the Rolls-Royce network is huge for the coming decades.”

N3’s workforce at Arnstadt will increase from 900-1,200 people over the next two years, mostly in skilled technical roles. "We will fill another 300 positions—through in-house training, qualifications and direct entry," adds Stefan Landes, commercial director responsible for human resources at N3.

N3 services five Trent engine types at the facility, including the Trent 500, Trent 700, Trent 900 and Trent XWB variants and, since the end of last year, Trent 1000 TEN engine types.