Fokker Services Group has announced plans to expand its existing site in the Netherlands by building a new widebody maintenance hangar.

The location will be at the independent aftermarket specialist’s MRO and completion center at Woensdrecht Airport, located 45 mi. south of Rotterdam and 20 mi. north of Antwerp across the Belgian border.

Once operational in the first quarter of next year, the facility will have capacity for several widebodies, including Airbus A330, A350 and Boeing 777 aircraft. 

Fokker currently operates five facilities servicing narrowbody, widebody and regional aircraft. These include three facilities in Europe across locations in the Netherlands, an Asia-Pacific business in Singapore and a base in the U.S. located in LaGrange, Georgia. 

Roland van Dijk, co-CEO of Fokker Services Group, says the new facility is the latest development in its company-wide growth plan, which includes new job creation across its global network, building its second widebody hangar and extending workshop spaces at its facilities.

“With this investment we are making a long-term commitment to our colleagues, customers, suppliers and the local community,” van Dijk says. “As the markets for widebody maintenance and VIP completions continue to grow, this modern hangar extension allows us to support new and existing customers for the years to come.” 

Fokker says that planning, development and preparations of the new hangar have been finalized and the modular hangar construction on-site has begun. It estimates construction work, undertaken by Spanish modular architecture company Gaptek, will take between 12-14 weeks to complete.

Earlier this month, the company rebranded its Fokker Services and Fokker Techniek subsidiaries as Fokker Services Group.