Airbus A220 Maintenance | Avianor Center Gains Altitude

The A220 maintenance centre project – the former Bombardier C Series – has always been associated with a promise from Air Canada. With the arrival of customers such as Air France and JetBlue, the complex built by Avianor is starting to fly on its own and should continue to gain altitude.

“There’s not a lot of places where the airplane can be repaired, as you know,” says outgoing Breeze Airways chairman Tom Doxey in a recent interview with The Press. “Depending on the nature of the work, the options are limited.”

The U.S. low-cost carrier, one of the largest North American customers for Airbus’ A220, is not yet an Avianor customer. Breeze Airways is still in what its chief executive calls the “maintenance honeymoon,” the period when systems and subsystems do not need to be disassembled for maintenance.

“Over time, we will increasingly move towards this type of activity [la maintenance lourde] and so, yes, they [Avianor] “will absolutely be part of the discussion,” Doxey said, adding that it could be a few years before a decision is made.

Breeze Airways has ordered up to 90 A220s, with the carrier receiving 25 so far.

In addition to Air Canada, Air France (entry-into-service visits) and JetBlue (heavy maintenance) are part of Avianor’s list of customers for the A220, the latter confirms. This list will, however, continue to grow.

“In addition to this good news, we are also in discussions with another North American company, once again solidifying our strategic plan,” said Hugo Brouillard, Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Avianor, without providing further details on this potential new client.

The company, which belongs to DRAKKAR, is expanding its Mirabel facilities in the Laurentians, a $70 million project that received a $9 million forgivable loan from the Legault government. The project should be completed by the fall.

We are talking about a hangar of approximately 105,000 square feet (9,755 square meters) adjacent to its facilities located in Mirabel. It will allow the addition of four maintenance lines that will be able to accommodate single-aisle aircraft such as the A220. The company performs maintenance on the airframes of the A220 aircraft, including the wings, fuselage, landing gear and empennage.

Avianor and the carrier also formalized their long-term agreement last May concerning the maintenance of its A220s at Mirabel.

A file that dates

This centre is part of a saga that goes back more than a decade in the maintenance of Air Canada aircraft.

By placing an order for 45 aircraft that would prove crucial to what was called the C Series in 2016, Air Canada had put a long legal dispute behind it. The country’s largest airline had committed to helping create a centre of excellence for maintenance for the program now controlled by Airbus.

Quebec had then agreed to end its legal recourse against Air Canada following the closure of Aveos – a maintenance specialist which employed 1,800 people in Montreal – in 2012.

The Quebec government argued that the airline had violated federal law requiring it to maintain its aircraft in Montreal, Mississauga and Winnipeg. Ottawa had agreed to amend the law that led to Air Canada’s privatization to give it more flexibility in aircraft maintenance.

Air Canada continues to be hounded, even though Aveos disappeared 12 years ago. In the fall of 2023, the Quebec Superior Court ruled in favour of former employees of the maintenance specialist in a class action against the airline. The latter has appealed the decision.

According to the plaintiffs, the calculation method chosen by the court – in a judgment delivered on July 16¹ – to compensate former Aveos workers could push the bill to more than $100 million for Air Canada.

1. Read the article “Aveos Closure: Hundreds of Millions at Stake for Air Canada”