Avianor, a company owned by DRAKKAR Aerospace & Ground Transportation, specialised in aircraft MRO and cabin integration, has officially launched the construction of its Centre of Excellence for the A220 aircraft at the Montreal-Mirabel International Airport (YMX).
The announcement was made by Denis Deschamps, Co-founder, President and CEO of DRAKKAR, accompanied by the Minister of the Economy, Innovation and Energy (MEIE), Pierre Fitzgibbon, at the International Paris Air Show.
Scheduled to open in fall of 2024, the Centre of Excellence represents an investment of more than CA$70 million in infrastructure, digitisation and state-of-the-art equipment, including a government loan of CAA$9 million from the Minister of the Economy, Innovation and Energy.
The brand-new 105,000 ft² hangar will create over 100 highly specialised maintenance jobs. Avianor will therefore have four additional maintenance lines to a accommodate the A220 aircraft and potentially other types of narrow-body aircraft programmes, for a total asset of seven maintenance lines in service.
“Since we acquired Avianor in 2019, the strategic driver of our medium and long-term growth plan was to set up a world-class maintenance and cabin integration centre in our ecosystem. Thanks to our launch customer, Air Canada, for the heavy maintenance of its A220s and the support of a number of stakeholders who are mobilising to make our Quebec aerospace industry shine, this vision is now being realised at a superior level with the Centre of Excellence, enabling us to become a benchmark in North America,” added Benoit Hudon, President and CEO of DRAKKAR Aerospace & Ground Transportation. (£1.00 = CA$1.68 at time of publication).
