US MRO and completions company Flying Colours is to add more than 140,000 sq ft to its North American footprint as it embarks on its largest infrastructure growth to date. Plans are currently being finalised for ground-breaking of a brand new hangar by the end of autumn this year at its Peterborough, Ontario, facility. This hangar, the fourth at the Peterborough headquarters, is needed to provide additional capacity for completions, refurbishment and heavy maintenance work scopes on large jet airframes.

The purpose-built hangar will be divided into three distinct zones. A new 40,000 sq ft, climate controlled, state-of-the-art paint shop will be added supplementing the two existing dedicated paint shops. Large enough to accommodate business jets up to Global 7500, BBJ or Airbus A220 size airframes, it will fulfil the higher volume of paint jobs passing through the facility. A second area of 40,000 sq ft has been designed to enable heavy maintenance and/or interior work on up to four Global 6000-size aircraft to take place simultaneously. Two higher levels will be used for new customer offices, a second dedicated design centre at the facility, storage and general office space. The total office space will cover more than 20,000 sq ft bringing the hangar footprint to more than 100,000 sq ft in total when it opens in mid-2019.

At the company's Chesterfield, St Louis, facility a fifth hangar will be inaugurated on 1 December. The 30,000 sq ft area will be large enough to handle up to three parallel large jet maintenance, avionics upgrades and interior projects at once for up to Bombardier Global and larger Gulfstream models. The additional capacity dovetails with the expanded interiors and cabinetry workshop that opened in January of this year. Together the shops will support the multiple aircraft projects being undertaken at the facility. A further 18,000 sq ft of customer lounges, office space and storage area will form the second floor of the facility.

This phase represents Flying Colours' largest investment to-date and has been driven by the long-term need for increased capacity as customer demand reflects renewed growth in the business aviation sector. An evolving connectivity segment has also stimulated the need for more avionics upgrades across numerous platforms. This has also been augmented by the upcoming ADS-B Out mandate in the North Americas.

When the buildings are complete more than 100 team members will join the family-owned business across the two sites. The search for maintenance, interiors and paint expertise will lead the recruitment drive.

“We were running out of space to deliver all the services that our clients were requesting, so took the decision to increase our footprint significantly at both of our North American sites,” says executive VP Sean Gillespie. “The business aviation sector is more buoyant than it has been for some time and our Bombardier ASF status, our breadth of experience working on numerous different aircraft types, and the fact that we can offer a multitude of skills under one roof so reducing aircraft downtime, is making us very attractive to a wider range of customers.”