Ural Airlines Expands Maintenance Power for A320 and B737 Fleets

Ural Airlines Expands Maintenance Power for A320 and B737 Fleets - Strategic Imperative: Ural Airlines' Push for Enhanced In-House MRO Control

Look, when you're running planes like the A320s and 737s hard, hopping between cities constantly, you really feel the pinch when something breaks. That's why what Ural Airlines is doing with its maintenance, repair, and overhaul—that MRO stuff—it isn't just housekeeping; it’s totally strategic. Think about it this way: if you have to ship a tricky part out to some huge facility three time zones away, you’re stuck waiting, and your plane is grounded, losing money. When they bring that capability inside, suddenly fixing those stubborn little snags gets way faster because the mechanics are right there, maybe even in the next hangar over. We're talking about tightening up the schedule control, which is everything when you’re trying to keep those high-frequency routes humming along smoothly. Honestly, for any airline flying a ton of narrowbodies like these, better in-house control just equals better dispatch reliability—it means fewer headaches for everyone involved.

Ural Airlines Expands Maintenance Power for A320 and B737 Fleets - Next Steps: Anticipated Scope and Timeline for Certification and Hangar Expansion

So, looking ahead, what's actually going to happen next with all this maintenance expansion? Well, the immediate push seems to be grabbing that EASA Part-145 certification for the heavy A320 work, and they're aiming for the third quarter of 2026 to nail that down. But that's just one piece of the puzzle because, you know that moment when you realize you need new tools before you can even start the real job? They're putting about 50 million rubles just into ultrasonic and eddy current NDT gear, which is wild, honestly, for just the inspection equipment needed for keeping those airframes sound. And then, you've got the Boeing side; they aren't forgetting the 737s because the plan is to start those structural checks for the Next Generation frames right at the start of 2027, assuming FATA gives the green light. The physical space itself is changing too—they're stretching the hangars out to 45 meters deep so they can fit three A320s or two 737s in for C-checks at the same time, which is a huge jump in capacity. But to really prove they can handle the serious stuff, they have to nail five major checks in a row under their new internal quality checks before anyone signs off on the big approvals. Plus, there’s this interesting little side quest: a whole chunk of Q4 2026 is blocked off just to get the go-ahead to do those winglet Service Bulletins on the 737s right there on site. It all starts small, too; the first real physical change is putting in those heavy-duty overhead cranes that can lift a 7,500-kilo engine assembly, making the actual heavy lifting much more manageable, I think.