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Ryanair has announced plans to build another base maintenance facility at Prestwick Airport in Scotland, along with new on-site component shops.
The LCC confirmed its expansion plans on March 20 as part of a £40 million ($53.3 million) investment. This will increase the number of maintenance bays at Prestwick from six to 10, making it Ryanair’s largest heavy maintenance hangar. The site is located around 35 mi. southwest of Glasgow.
Ryanair, which has operated a maintenance business at the site since 2003, expanded to its current six-bay setup in 2010. The airline currently employs more than 1,200 engineering and maintenance staff at Prestwick. Ryanair DAC CEO Eddie Wilson said the expansion expects to create 450 new engineering and mechanic jobs, including 60 apprenticeships.
The UK government will contribute £4.9 million toward the construction of the new hangar, as part of a broader £32 million investment in the Prestwick Aerospace Cluster, home to several MRO, aerostructures and design engineering companies.
The Scottish government and Scottish Enterprise, the country’s economic development agency, are jointly investing more than £15 million toward the Ryanair facility expansion.
The latest investment plan follows a £5 million opening of Ryanair’s on-site training academy in late 2024. The center was established to create around 500 jobs and training for engineers, mechanics and support staff to service Ryanair’s fleet, which is expected to surpass 800 aircraft by 2034.
Ryanair operates a fleet of approximately 647 aircraft, as of March 2026. The fleet comprises more than 400 Boeing 737NGs and more than 140 737-8-200 aircraft. The airline also operates 26 Airbus A320ceos under the Lauda brand, an Austrian LCC. Its future orderbook includes commitments for 300 737-10 aircraft.
As the fleet ramps up, Ryanair has also invested further in its MRO footprint. While using an LCC model, Ryanair undertakes a lot of its own maintenance work in-house. Estimated checks related to Ryanair aircraft stand at about 75% internal work and 25% external maintenance.
In addition to Prestwick, the carrier operates heavy maintenance bays at MRO facilities in Frankfurt; Glasgow, Scotland; Kaunas, Lithuania; Seville, Spain; Shannon, Ireland; and Wroclaw, Poland; and also uses external providers, such as Joramco in Jordan. The airline has line maintenance bases across Europe, the largest of which are at London Stansted Airport; Dublin; Madrid; Milan and Vienna; Porto, Portugal; and Nuremberg, Germany.
In 2025, the Irish airline revealed plans to open two of its own engine shops in continental Europe or potentially North Africa by 2029 as a means of gaining further control over the turbulent engine MRO supply chain.
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