New Capabilities In 2018

In March 2018, Swiss MRO SR Technics confirmed plans to adopt mobile climbing robots for aircraft maintenance work. As part of a tie-up with New Zealand-based robotics specialist Invert Robotics, SR Technics said using the technology for automated inspections will help bring down inspection times on aircraft from hours to minutes.

The expansion of Germany-headquartered component specialist FACC’s MRO facility in Wichita, Kansas will also bring a raft of new capabilities with it. As part of an overall €100 million investment which will see the addition of 60,000 square feet of production space, FACC will add paint capabilities and a composite repair shop that can accommodate larger composite systems.

Earlier this month, Lufthansa Technik invested €2 million into its Munich base to upgrade the location’s maintenance capabilities. It put a new tail dock into operations at the base for maintenance work on the Airbus A330, A340 and A350.

In February 2018,  Ameco announced plans to add MRO capabilities for new generation narrowbody and widebody aircraft, engines and business. These new capabilities include C checks for the 787 and A350 in 2019 and 2020 respectively. 

Earlier this year, S7 Technics was granted approval from Russia's regulator to carry out complete disassembly and reassembly on CFM56-5B and -7B engine types from its facility at Moscow Domodedovo Airport. Following the certification, S7’s new repair capabilities include high and low pressure compressor and turbine units, replacement of combustion chambers and high pressure turbine nozzles on the engine types.

CFM International expanded the capability of its CFM Training Center in Hyderabad, India, to include both the LEAP-1As and LEAP-1Bs.

Estonian aftermarket provider Magnetic MRO gained authorization to offer line maintenance services on Airbus A330 family aircraft after having its Part 145 approval upgraded in March 2018. The certification covers all three engine types used on A330 variants, which are the Rolls-Royce Trent 700, Pratt & Whitney PW4000 and GE Aviation’s CF6.

Boeing bolstered its aftermarket services division in April 2018 by announcing a string of new products ranging from data analytics platforms to repair capability additions. These include a data-focused capability called Self-Service Analytics by Boeing AnalytX, which allows subscribing customers of Boeing’s Airplane Health Management, Flight Planning, Fuel Dashboard and In-Service Data Program to access applications’ data through analytics tools.