VARNA, Bulgaria—ETG Maintenance may explore adding further hangar capacity in Bulgaria as it looks to shift its focus from being a technical sister company of Electra Airways to servicing more third-party clients.
Speaking to Aviation Week Network from its hangar in Varna where it services Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 aircraft, Stefan Trifonov, accountable manager at ETG Maintenance, says the company opened its second line of base maintenance there in 2021 as it started accommodating third-party operators.
Trifonov says its association with cargo and aircraft wet lease airline Electra Airways, also under the ownership of Tel Aviv-based parent company Vector Group, has been important for the MRO as it has provided a regular flow of work for the shop as the fleet grows, standing most recently at eight A320 family aircraft for summer 2024.
However, ETG Maintenance is looking to grow maintenance work outside of Electra Airways and has started to shift focus toward more third-party customers and away from a reliance on its airline affiliate. Since then, it has maintained around 20 aircraft operated by Polish charter airline Enter Air. For the winter base maintenance 2023-24 period, it has seven Bulgaria Air aircraft scheduled for checks along with three operated by Lithuanian charter carrier Heston Airlines, which Trifonov says is likely to increase to between five to seven aircraft next year.
Given the surge in third-party customers, ETG Maintenance finds itself in a similar situation to other MRO providers in not being able to provide the market with enough capacity and turning down some requests from additional clients. “We want to further develop our base maintenance capabilities and one idea is to build another base maintenance hangar to increase our capacity in the near future,” Trifonov says.
ETG Maintenance says it has been in discussions for around one year to build a new MRO hangar in Burgas, located around 75 mi. south of Varna. The company is also discussing expanding its maintenance lines further in Varna to build another “two to three” lines of maintenance by extending its existing facility there. “Expansion is necessary if we are to realize our third-party ambitions,” Trifonov adds.
