Gulfstream Aerospace has announced plans to construct a new maintenance, repair and overhaul facility at Texas’s Fort Worth Alliance Airport (AFW). The 160,000-square-foot (14,864-square-meter) service center will include hangar space, back shops and employee and customer offices. Gulfstream expects to break ground on the project in the third quarter of 2020 and open the facility by fall 2021.
“[AFW] is an established airport for business aviation operators, has an outstanding infrastructure and is appropriately sized for our operations,” said Gulfstream Customer Support President Derek Zimmerman. “The additional maintenance capacity we can provide at Alliance, the state-of-the-art facility and substantial job creation are great news for our customers, our employees and the community.”
In addition to adding around 50 new jobs, Gulfstream says it will relocate between 150 to 200 of the 230 customer service employees currently based at the company’s Dallas Love Field (DAL) location to the new facility. Gulfstream plans to invest more than $35 million in the expansion project, which is still subject to the approval of the board of directors of its parent company, General Dynamics. As previously reported by AVweb, Gulfstream opened new maintenance facilities in Savannah, Georgia; Appleton, Wisconsin; and Van Nuys, California, in 2019 and plans to open two more in Palm Beach, Florida, and Farnborough, England, this year.
Not impressed with news of a new facility at AFW when Gulfstream can’t deliver at the DAL facility, due not to inadequate facilities, rather to anemic levels of integrity and care for the customer, perpetuating a 4 year trend now.