A UK aircraft painting specialist is planning a major expansion in northeast England amid strong demand for its services from airlines across Europe.

Airbourne Colours, which recently announced a brand-new hangar at Teesside International Airport, is planning on opening more workshops at the facility over the next couple of years.

Speaking to FINN, Steve Darbyshire, founder and chief executive of Airbourne Colours, said: “We opened up in Teesside in September. Twelve months after that another bay will open in Teesside, and 12 months after that another bay will open.”

Airbourne Colours provides aircraft painting services for major European airlines, including Jet2, easyJet, Loganair, Smartlynx, Lufthansa, Aegean and Brussels Airlines.

The East Midlands company is enjoying robust demand from carriers and since Covid has seen much busier summer months. This is usually a period of downtime for Airbourne Colours when aircraft are being used to fly passengers rather than sat in a workshop being repainted.

But Darbyshire said in recent years there has been strong year-round demand: “Stripping paint takes seven days but the aircraft is getting worked on 24 hours a day, from when we take it in. There’s no Monday morning blues in my company because we don’t get days off.”

Commenting on supply chain issues facing the sector, he added: “In aviation there are problems all this time, if it’s not that problem, there’s something else anyway. It’s a very testing industry. We’ve had supply chain issues, but we get round everything.

“There are many challenges. You are dealing with human beings, liquids and gravity. Painting is quite easy, but quite easy to get wrong as well. And when it goes wrong, it goes wrong and it’s expensive.”
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