ST Engineering has officially inaugurated a new aircraft maintenance hangar at Pensacola International Airport in Florida, US.
The company called inauguration a “significant milestone in its continued growth and expansion in Pensacola”.
The new facility is the second of four hangars at an airframe MRO complex being developed by ST Engineering. The new 177,000sq ft hangar features two bays capable of accommodating widebody aircraft, effectively doubling ST Engineering’s existing capacity in Pensacola.
The hangar, which currently supports a customer Airbus A300 programme, started operations in January this year. When fully operational, it is expected to generate more than 400 new high-value job opportunities for the local community.
Pensacola Mayor D.C. Reeves said of the opening: “We are thrilled to open another state-of-the-art facility and see our partnership with ST Engineering flourish. Ensuring quality job growth is crucial to the future success of Pensacola, and this new hangar is a major step forward for our citizens, airport and community.”
The airframe MRO complex that the new hangar is a part of is a project co-funded by ST Engineering, Triumph Gulf Coast, the City of Pensacola, Escambia County, the State of Florida, and various state and federal organisations. Upon completion, the complex will have a capacity of over two million man-hours and is projected to generate over 1,700 jobs, including skilled positions such as aircraft inspectors, airframe and powerplant technicians, as well as interior and avionics technicians.
Construction of the third and fourth hangars is scheduled to commence in the latter half of the year.
ST Engineering’s president of commercial aerospace Jeffrey Lam commented: “The opening of this latest hangar for our airframe MRO complex comes at a time when air travel is rapidly recovering to pre-pandemic levels, giving us the necessary capacity to pursue new opportunities in the Americas and support our loyal customers.”
ST Engineering North America’s president Timothy McBride said: “We are thankful for the support from the community, organisations and institutions in Pensacola that have helped with the development and opening of our newest hangar.
“As the aviation industry continues to recover from the pandemic, the airframe MRO complex will create hundreds of new job opportunities in the region. We are dedicated to working with state and local leaders to maintain Northwest Florida’s status as a national hub for the aviation industry, and to bring more high-quality engineering and aviation maintenance jobs to the community.”
ST Engineering has officially inaugurated a new aircraft maintenance hangar at Pensacola International Airport in Florida, US.
