GAMECO Signs China’s Largest Cargo Airline, Builds Country’s Third-Largest Hangar

Henry Canaday October 28, 2020

Gameco
After announcing plans to spend around $85 million on two new facilities at its Guangzhou base, Gameco also plans to roll out several new digitally driven initiatives. The MRO has spent the past few years initiating its Smart MRO project with a series of rollouts including mobile the installation of a mobile route maintenance management system, electronic signature of work card and the application of RFID technology in aviation materials and tool equipment management, to name a few. Underpinning this is a 5G internet network, which has equipped its facilities since 2019. Long-term, it plans to build an Internet of things infrastructure by using RFID, digital monitoring technology, further realize the digitization of tools, aviation materials and equipment and obtain its tracking and status data in real time.

China’s GDP grew 4.9% in the third quarter of 2020, after increasing 3.2% in the second quarter, dramatically better than the western economies still struggling with virus restraints.

Growth means a lot more cargo business, and China’s largest freight airline, SF Airlines, plans to add to its fleet of about 60 Boeing freighters.

That should mean plenty of work for GAMECO, which has signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement with the giant cargo carrier for aircraft overhaul, line maintenance, component repair, engineering services, technical training and part manufacturing.

This is the first time the MRO and airline have agreed to such comprehensive cooperation.
To prepare for this and other growth, GAMECO is building the third-widest hangar in China, its Phase III Hangar. It recently lifted the steel structure of the hangar to its top, thus beginning a new construction stage.

Assembly of the hangar started in March, 2020, and it took half a year to completely lift the steel structure. GAMECO used a technique called “overall lifting in two times,” first lifting the grid to 10 meters to match a structural element of the hangar door and then up to 30 meters, lifting at three meters per hour.

GAMECO’s Phase III Hangar is part of a larger project that includes hangar and a three-story building. The hangar can accommodate 11 heavy maintenance lines, including six for widebodies and five narrowbodies. When complete, it will give the MRO room for a total of 30 heavy maintenance production lines.