British Airways has announced a multi-million pound investment in its engineering maintenance facility at Cardiff Airport.
The planned investment will expand one of three existing maintenance bays at British Airways Maintenance Cardiff (BAMC) to facilitate larger long-haul A350 aircraft. When completed, BAMC will go from one to two fully flexible bays, which will allow more complex and detailed maintenance work to be completed.
The planned work will help increase the airline’s efficiency across maintenance operations as the engineering base will be able to facilitate more aircraft types. Currently, the base can only serve Boeing 777 and 787 aircraft types. This expansion, part of the airline’s £7bn transformation investment, will get underway in 2025 and is expected to be completed by 2026. The project underscores the airline's commitment to the future of its Cardiff-based operations – which employs 480 colleagues, supporting the Welsh economy.
Andy Best, Chief Technical Officer at British Airways, said: “Our Welsh engineering base is an integral part of our maintenance operation, and this investment, as part of our wider maintenance strategy, will ensure that British Airways Engineering Wales continues to play a key role for many years to come. The expanded facility provides us with greater flexibility and control over our Heavy Maintenance activity on both the Boeing and Airbus long-haul fleets, ensuring more efficient planning and execution.”
Rebecca Evans, Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Energy and Planning, Welsh Government, said: “This is very welcome news from British Airways, paving the way for further growth at their Cardiff site and its highly skilled workforce.
“This announcement once again demonstrates the vital role that Cardiff Airport plays in bringing investment into Wales and in growing our Aerospace Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul sector, where we see continued international interest”
Investment in Cardiff Airport
This year, a number of major announcements have been made around the future of Cardiff Airport and the strategic role it will play in helping boost the Welsh economy. In July 2024, the Welsh Government announced plans to provide the Airport with long-term investment funding worth up to £206m across a ten-year period. This would be in addition to the equity investment of £6.6m for new security scanners.
In October of this year, the airport announced that European Cargo would be launching their second UK base at Cardiff Airport, to service new regular air freight services between China and Wales. This was during the same month low cost airline Play Airlines launched their new winter seasonal flight between Keflavík, Iceland, and Cardiff, Wales Airport.
The airport recently announced major investment in upgrading its runway and taxiway infrastructure which commenced on 11th November 2024 and is due to be completed by the 31st of March 2025.
Cardiff Wales Airport is a vital element of Wales’ economic infrastructure, which has been estimated to generate over £200m in Gross Value Added (GVA) annually and supports over 4,000 jobs. The Welsh Governments own strategy for the airports recognises that the needs of air passengers in Wales are served by a range of airports and this will remain the case in future.
However, in its aim to create new jobs, the Airport will focus on:
Aircraft Maintenance, Repair & Overhaul (MRO) – helping existing businesses at the Airport to grow and attracting new businesses to both the Airport and the Bro Tathan business park, building on the hundreds of jobs in this sector already.
General Aviation (GA) – developing facilities to encourage private aircraft owners and other GA-related activities to use the Airport, making the most of its proximity, when visiting South Wales. This would enhance the Airport’s offering to organisers of major sporting and cultural events in the region, as well as becoming more attractive for VIP business travellers and foreign investors.
Air cargo – attracting more logistics operations to improve supply chain and export options for the region and maximise the use of increasing cargo capacity in line with route development
Sustainable aviation technologies – in the medium to longer term, making the most of the aerospace cluster and green energy initiatives in the region by providing the infrastructure and services necessary to start and nurture businesses developing next-generation greener aviation technologies, such as Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) supply chains, electric aircraft and hydrogen propulsion.
Welsh Government and Cardiff Airport have noted publicly too that they are actively working on improving connectivity, through new routes to those parts of the world identified in the Welsh Government’s international strategy as being important for economic growth, such as:
The Middle East and South Asia
The European Union - major economic and finance centres and hub airports
North America
For more support on air freight and logistics, please email justus.becher@risbyconsulting.com
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