Following a dynamic growth trajectory in recent years, MAAS Aviation has opened a purpose-built world-class aircraft paint shop at Lithuania’s Kaunas Airport.

The facility is the first of its kind in Lithuania and demonstrates MAAS Aviation’s expanding global footprint. It now has 11 paint shops (three in Hamburg, two in Kaunas, two in Maastricht, one at Fokker Woensdrecht and three in Mobile Alabama) and this latest addition increases their overall capacity in Europe by 40%. Alongside the latest technologies, the new facility also includes systems to ensure safe and secure operations and to manage the environmental impact of the company’s activities.

All MAAS Aviation facilities are certified to EN9100, ISO9001 and ISO14001 standards and with a multi-million euro investment from MAAS Aviation, the new twin-bay narrow body paint shop is capable of accommodating up to two A321 sized aircraft simultaneously.

According to Tim Macdougald, COE of MAAS Aviation, the central/ eastern European location of Kaunas was chosen as a result of several influencing factors including the universal willingness of Lithuanian authorities to bring a new industry to Lithuania. “I’d particularly like to mention Invest Lithuania and the Airport Authority of Lithuania for supporting a project that spearheads the development of aviation services at Kaunas; and to FL Technics for committing to build a partnership with MAAS to combine our services with theirs for the benefit of airline and lease customers; and to Ryanair for its continued business and trust in being our launch customer at the site.”

Macdougald added that MAAS Aviation’s business benefits from long term customer contracts – including with Airbus. “The standard of our facilities reflects our design expertise and includes full climate control paint shops, computerised building management systems and datalogging, high-lux lighting, and fully-lined clean paint shops. Our use of aircraft access docking systems eliminates the risk of damaging aircraft during painting due to the avoidance of moving equipment.”

The build at Kaunas Airport was completed on time and within budget with Macdougald crediting its professional team spearheaded by Cobalt Law in ensuring the project ran smoothly from a legal and contractual perspective and its design team headed by Ian Guinness of MRO Facilities International.

The 40% increase in MAAS Aviation’s European MRO capcity enables the company to capture more business during the peak seasons. “Our partnership with FL Technics will combine our services for the benefit of airline and leasing company customers – together we will offer an outstanding aircraft redelivery centre-of-excellence at Kaunas Airport.”

The company forecasts that this year across all 11 of its facilities it will paint up to 300 aircraft with turnover expected to exceed $28 million.

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