Flexjet sister Sirio opens hangar at Milan Linate Airport

The new hangar enhances Flexjet’s in-house maintenance capacity in Europe as the industry continues to face supply chain and labor shortages

Flexjet sister company Sirio S.p.A. and SEA Prime, a company of the SEA Group, which, with the Milano Prime brand, is a leading business aviation airport manager in Italy and in Europe, today unveiled a new, state-of-the-art hangar at Milan Linate Prime airport.

The Hangar X facility represents a significant infrastructure growth milestone for SEA Prime and Sirio, a management and maintenance company that provides European maintenance services for sister company Flexjet’s fleet.

The new 50,500-square-foot Hangar X is the 11th hangar of Milan Linate Prime airport, increasing to 323,000 square feet of dedicated hangar space.

It adds to Sirio’s existing leased infrastructure on the same site, giving a total space of nearly 115,000 square feet.

The dedicated maintenance hangar will allow Sirio to expand its capacity and offer the entire maintenance process in one single infrastructure.

Purpose-built as a state-of-the-art base and line maintenance facility, it 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.

Since it became an Aircraft Maintenance Organization in 1993, Sirio has grown to support 11 types of business jets for a wide range of inspections and maintenance solutions.

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.

President of ENAC, Pierluigi Di Palma, stated, “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.”

At today’s opening ceremony for the new hangar, Armando Brunini, Chief Executive Officer of SEA, declared, “The 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, consistently with our group’s sustainability goals.”

Chiara Dorigotti, Chief Executive Officer of SEA Prime, added, “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. We are proud of this new achievement setting the pace for further expansion.”

Flexjet’s take

Attending and speaking at the opening ceremony was Kenn Ricci, Principal of Directional Aviation, the parent company of both Sirio and Flexjet.

Ricci 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 added, “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.”

According to Ricci, it follows Flexjet’s U.S. strategy “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.”

Tom Engelhard, Chief Executive Officer of Sirio, added, “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 built over twelve months by the contractor Di Vincenzo Dino & C. S.p.A. under the supervision of SEA Group’s Design and Infrastructure Development Team.

Under 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 features, including a wastewater recovery and recycling system and solar energy panels across the entire roof.