According to the president of the Hi Fly group, a Portuguese charter airline headquartered in Lisbon, work began this month to clear land at Beja airport to build a €30 million hangar.
The group company, Mesa, already has started work to build the aircraft maintenance facility that aims to create 150 jobs over the next three years, chairman Paulo Mirpuri said.
The company’s investment should be operational in the fourth quarter of 2020, with the hangar used for maintenance of the Hi Fly airline charter fleet.
The hangar project includes workshops and a technical centre with capacity for large airplanes.
According to Paulo Mirpuri, Mesa decided to build the hangar in Beja because it is currently "the only Portuguese airport that can accommodate all types of aircraft that make up the Hi Fly fleet, including the A380 airbus," the largest commercial aircraft of the world.
Mirpuri added that the development and expansion of Mesa’s activities also will include, "a new logistics centre to support increased maintenance activities whose location will be announced in the second half of this year," and may be in Lisbon, Palmela or Beja.
According to the administrator of airports operator ANA, Thierry Ligonnière, the Mesa project is evidence that maintenance, dismantling and the medium to long-term parking of airplanes at Beja airport is the best way of using the facility.
