Aircraft management and MRO firm Sirio and business aviation company SEA Prime have unveiled a new hangar at Milan Linate Prime airport.
Hangar X represents a major addition to the infrastructure at the airport. The 4,700m2 facility is the eleventh hangar at Milan Linate Prime airport, increasing the hangar space at the airport to 30,000m2 and adding to Sirio’s existing leased infrastructure on the same site, to a total space of 10,625m2.
The new hangar will be used by Sirio for providing maintenance and enables it to expand its capacity and offer the entire maintenance process in one single infrastructure. Sirio, a directional aviation company, provides European maintenance services for sister company Flexjet’s fleet.
Purpose-built as a base and line maintenance facility, Hangar X features underfloor heating, a crane and a design that provides natural light from all four sides to the hangar floor and can accommodate the next generation of business aircraft.
Sirio has been an Aircraft Maintenance Organisation since 1993 and can perform inspections and maintenance for 11 types of business jet.
In addition to Flexjet, it offers maintenance services to a fleet of managed aircraft and selected third-party operators. With its maintenance division comprised of over 40 specialists, Sirio almost doubled its maintenance man hours between 2021 and 2022, from 11,500 to 20,000.
Speaking at the opening of the hangar, Pierluigi Di Palma, president of Italian Civil Aviation Authority ENAC said, “Today we inaugurate an innovative space that will enable us to intercept new market segments in aviation maintenance, a further demonstration that this sector can look to the future and anticipate the operator’s needs.
“The hangar also enables the business aviation activity at Milano Linate Prime to gain more value and to generate employment and economic turnover in favor of the entire territory, increasing the competitive growth of the compartment worldwide.”
Armando Brunini, CEO and managing director of SEA said, “This new infrastructure at Milano Linate Prime represents an important milestone for the SEA Group in a growing business environment with a highly rated environmental performance, consistent with our Group’s sustainability goals.”
“This build was executed in 12 months, in a very challenging market environment. We are proud of this new achievement setting the pace for further expansion. This is just another step towards growth,” said Chiara Dorigotti, CEO of SEA Prime.
“SEA Prime’s investment follows the double-digit business aviation traffic growth in 2022 of 20% vs 2021, which continues in the first quarter of 2023, and meets the increasing demand for premium hangar space at Milano Prime,”
“This double-digit growth over the past three years is due to a number of factors of the market, but I also believe it is due to the quality and size of the infrastructure which we dedicate to business aviation.”
Kenn Ricci, principal of Directional Aviation, the parent company of both Sirio and Flexjet said, “Aircraft maintenance is a lynchpin of our industry, and it is fantastic to see this truly impressive new facility brought to life, underpinning the next phase of growth for Sirio,” he said.
“For Flexjet, having expansive, industry-leading maintenance support within the same group differentiates us based on safety, reliability and efficiency – allowing us greater control over our fleet and dispatch reliability and the ability to offer the very highest levels of service.
“This follows our model in the United States, where we have a fully dedicated in-house maintenance resource for Flexjet, following the acquisition of Constant Aviation earlier this year. Together this gives our global organization the largest maintenance support structure in business aviation.
“A fundamental principle in our company is that employees are the foundation. It’s a very Italian concept. We have almost 5000 employees and we still manage to treat them all like family. I want to thank all the members of the Sirio team and the flex jet team for making this happen.”
Tom Engelhard, chief executive officer of Sirio said, “Thirty years on since we launched our maintenance division, we are proud and delighted to unveil its new home here at Milan Linate Airport. These innovative facilities will allow our team of specialists to provide Sirio’s leading maintenance offering to an increased number of aircraft, in an exceptionally efficient way.”
The new Hangar X has been designed by One Works S.p.A. and was built by contractor Di Vincenzo Dino & C under the supervision of SEA Group’s Design and Infrastructure Development Team.
Under the globally recognized BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) sustainability standards, the project was awarded a design rating of ‘Excellent’ and a score of 84.7% for sustainability and features a wastewater recovery and recycling system and solar energy panels across the entire roof.
