Air India’s Mihan workshop to be flagged off next year

The Air India management will be commissioning a new workshop by 2019 for testing and overhauling GE engines which are used in Boeing 777 and Boeing 787 passenger planes. The workshop will come up at the recently established MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul) unit at Mihan in Nagpur.

The MRO unit was established by Boeing and later handed over to Air India as a part of the mega purchase of 112 aircraft. The unit also carries out maintenance work for third-party aircraft.

A senior Air India official told BusinessLine that ₹400 crore has already been invested at the Mihan facility. The facility is carrying out airframe and other critical tests such as C-checks. But the aircraft are sent to GE’s global facilities in Europe or Singapore for other crucial tests involving the engines and for overhaul.

At Mihan, service personnel are currently being recruited. Such workshops will further sweeten the deal in the event of the sale of Air India, the official said.

The MRO facilty at the Mihan SEZ is built over 50 acres. It was set up as a joint initiative between Air India and Boeing in June 2010.

Apart from carrying out maintenance work on Boeing 737 and 777 fleet, the facility is also allowed to conduct up to 4A checks on other aircraft. The facility has two 100x100 metre hangars to accommodate wide-bodied aircraft like Boeing 777s and 747-800s, and another 24,000 sq m area for allied work.

Each of the two hangars can house four wide-bodied aircraft and six narrow-bodied aircraft at a time.

Besides utilising the facility to maintain its fleet at Nagpur, Air India wants to leverage it for a share of the MRO market as most of the private airlines carry out these works abroad, the official added.

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