Monarch Aircraft Engineering (MAEL) celebrates 50th anniversary

Since its foundation on March 30, 1967, MAEL has serviced an estimated 10,000 aircraft, employed over 3,000 people and trained 800 people through its highly reputed apprenticeship scheme. MAEL, which was founded a year before Monarch Airlines, was established at Luton Airport where it remains headquartered today, opening a hangar at the airport in 1968 and commencing jet aircraft maintenance in 1971. Fast forward fifty years and MAEL today has line maintenance facilities at Gatwick, Luton, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds Bradford, Edinburgh, Nice, Malaga, Warsaw and Kiev, all capable of providing line maintenance support of all levels on Airbus, Boeing, Embraer and Bombardier aircraft types. The company’s base maintenance operation has grown too from Luton to also include a state-of-the-art facility at Birmingham Airport which opened in 2013. Between them, the two hangar facilities are capable of accommodating up to twelve lines of heavy maintenance across Boeing, Airbus, Embraer and Bombardier types. Today, MAEL is also a leading MRO for new technology aircraft, including the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, having provided maintenance support to the first Boeing 787 Dreamliner operating in Europe. MAEL is one of a small number of Boeing-approved GoldCare providers worldwide.