DALLAS — Air Europa (UX) inaugurated a new MRO Hangar at Madrid-Barajas Airport with the capacity of up to three widebody jets. UX can now officially perform maintenance to its Boeing 787 aircraft on-site at Madrid-Barajas International Airport (MAD), which is its major and largest hub, with almost 40 destinations worldwide.

From May 14, 2023, the Spanish carrier will make use of the recently inaugurated 160,000-square-foot hangar constructed and managed by its parent company Globalia. Globalia is also the owner of other UX subsidiaries like Air Europa Express (X5) or the Groundforce handling brand.

This massive space allows for work on up to three Boeing 787 family jets at the same time.

Maintenance Hub in Madrid?

Until this day, the airline could only perform smaller and less relevant checks and repairs to its Dreamliner fleet at MAD, and all larger reviews and overhauls needed to be done either at Palma de Mallorca Airport (PMI) or Abu Dhabi Airport (AUH). Now, UX can not only optimize its maintenance procedures at its hub but can also offer this service to third-party airlines across the world.

At the moment of writing, UX is still awaiting the delivery of six Boeing 787 family aircraft, which still suffer from reliability issues related to the Trent 1000 engine operation. In April 2024, the airline completed the lease return of two 787-9 jets to Norse Atlantic Airways (N0) which joined the fleet in 2021 in response to delivery delays from Boeing.

On the other hand, the arrival of the Boeing 737 MAX to the UX’s fleet keeps being delayed and an official delivery date has not been yet established by the carrier.