Invest Lithuania has announced that Ryanair is preparing to invest around €250,000 ($274,000) to expand its maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facility, Kaunas Aircraft Maintenance Services (KAMS), located at Kaunas International Airport in Lithuania.
The announcement cites KAMS’s accountable manager, Karolis Čepukas, explaining that the investment will be used to acquire a range of new workshops at the facility.
“The expected volume of airframe maintenance and aircraft components in Kaunas is increasing,” said Čepukas, “so it was decided to open additional workshops for aircraft components within our existing hangars. We are opening workshops for repairing aircraft airstairs, filling oxygen cylinders, and working on metal and composite parts. In addition, we will be hiring additional aircraft airframe technicians,” he explained. This would represent a 30 percent increase in the number of MRO specialists it employs leading to a total workforce of around 140 specialists.
Turnover will reportedly jump 20 percent in 2016. Ryanair’s expansion plan targets a fleet of over 500 aircraft by 2020. Invest Lithuania noted that KAMS could then decide to invest in new hangars for aircraft refinishing and other maintenance at the Kaunas facility in the future.
Mantas Katinas, Invest Lithuania’s general manager, has linked the expansion of the country’s aviation industry to improved study programs at Lithuania’s higher eduction institutions. An agreement between aviation companies operating in the Kaunas region with Kaunas University of Technology (KTU) has led to third year students being offered the opportunity to do a full year internship at one of the aircraft maintenance and repair organisations participating in the scheme.
Said Katinas: “The aircraft repair and maintenance industry is particularly dependent on the education and experience levels of its engineers…Advances in education programs and the cooperation between universities and the major aviation companies operating in Lithuania will have two important effects. They will enhance the position of the entire industry in Lithuania, and will help to create favourable business conditions both for the growth of existing aviation companies and for the attraction of investments from new players.”