Crawley Borough Council approves Boeing Gatwick hangar
Above: Graphic of Boeing’s planned commercial aviation hangar for maintenance, repair and overhaul at Gatwick Airport for European commercial airline customers. The £88 million facility will create around 100 direct jobs and an additional 100 indirect jobs in the area. Planning permission was granted late yesterday by the local authority and Boeing expects construction to start at the facility later this year, for an early 2019 opening. Building the facility is expected to support 475 jobs and contribute around £80m of gross value added (GVA) to the local economy around the airport and over the first two decades of operation the hangar’s activities should generate a further £135m in GVA in the Gatwick area.
The facility will be fully operational in early 2019 and will add on-site engineering and maintenance capability for operators of Boeing aircraft at Gatwick, including short haul 737 aircraft and Gatwick’s growing long haul fleet of 747, 777, and 787 Dreamliner aircraft.
Gatwick’s route network is growing fast, and the airport is in the Premier League of European Airports that serve more than 60 long-haul destinations. With new services on Boeing aircraft to Denver, Seattle, Austin, Chicago, and Singapore recently commenced or announced, this new hangar will play an important role in supporting Gatwick’s long-haul network as it continues to grow.
The new hangar facility will support the Gatwick airline community’s immediate operational needs which, in turn, will help the airport to continue its record growth in both short and long haul services. It will also support Boeing’s Global Fleet Care customers. Utilised by more than 60 airline customers around the world, Global Fleet Care is a flexible set of fleet engineering, materials and maintenance services tailored for airlines.
Gatwick’s Chief Commercial Officer, Guy Stephenson, said: “Gatwick’s partnership with Boeing will deliver a boost to jobs on the airport as well as providing close service support to Gatwick’s growing long and short haul Boeing fleet. This will help ensure that Gatwick’s record growth can continue and our global network can continue to expand.
“The hangar facility will provide a new level of on-site engineering capability which supports our airlines here in the UK. Initiatives like this are ever more vital as we strive for continued operational efficiency as we respond to the demand from airlines and passengers for more services at Gatwick.”
The new multi-million pound hangar facility, which will be located in the North West zone of the airport, is expected to support more than 200 jobs at Boeing and its suppliers in the region surrounding the airport.
This development is set to build on the long term partnership between Boeing and the UK Government, announced at the Farnborough International Airshow in July 2016 and the ground breaking for Boeing’s first factory in Europe, to be built outside Sheffield, South Yorkshire and twinned with a facility in Portland, Oregon.
