Flying Colours Corp.—the North American maintenance, repair, overhaul and completions company—has taken up residence in its fifth hangar at the Spirit of St Louis Airport.
The existing building is ideally located next door to the KSUS runway, adding a much-needed 30,000 square feet to the St Louis footprint, and complementing the expanded cabinetry and interior workshop opened at the facility in January 2018.
Sean Gillespie, executive vice president for Flying Colours, said: “Our customers value the fact we can run interiors and maintenance simultaneously, so reducing down time. We were turning work away in St. Louis so it’s great to have the hangar ready and open for operations.”
The local team has been outfitting the building, installing new state-of-the-art tooling and supplementary maintenance equipment as well as revamping the office decor, since the acquisition of the hangar lease at the end of last year (December 2018).
The facility now accommodates up to three parallel large-jet maintenance avionics upgrades as well as interior projects. Initially it will support heavy maintenance work. A recruitment drive has been launched seeking more than 50 maintenance engineers, technicians and administrative support personnel, which bring the St Louis workforce up to 200 in total.
Two Bombardier Global aircraft are already in-situ for its 120-month heavy maintenance checks.
The addition of the fifth hangar runs in parallel with the construction at Flying Colours’ Peterborough headquarters fourth hangar, expected to be large enough to manage completions, refurbishment, maintenance and paint work in a new dedicated paint shop for Bombardier and Gulfstream large jet types, as well as executive airliners.
The addition of the St. Louis hangar, and the building of new workshops in Peterborough, represent Flying Colours ongoing expansion plans driven by growth in customer demand.