FL Technics, a global provider of integrated aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul services, has announced completing a major upgrade project for already the fifth Airbus-A321 in 2017.

“It is very uncommon for aircraft operators to entrust MROs with projects of such scope. They typically prefer to complete them at the manufacturer’s facilities. Therefore, the fact that one of our clients has selected FL Technics to conduct such complex upgrades and modifications on as many as 5 leased Airbus-A321s comes to show that our team has developed an exceptionally high reputation and earned major trust amongst prominent market players,” said Zilvinas Lapinskas, CEO of FL Technics.

According to Z. Lapinskas, although the project was extremely complex due to an extensive number of technical changes to the aircraft required by the customer, FL Technics engineering, planning and base maintenance teams did a brilliant job and completed the project within the set time frame.

The latest modification comprised fundamental equipment and furnishing changes in cargo compartment, including the removal of ACT in the AFT cargo hold and the installation of semi-automatic cargo loading system to both cargo compartments. The passenger’s compartment had to be reconfigured by modifying monuments and adapting seat layout. The newly installed ventilation and heating system in the AFT cargo compartment allows for safe animal transportation.

Another significant part of this project was the installation of wireless ground link quick access recorder designed to provide quick and easy access to raw flight data. Now the Operator no longer needs to physically download data from FDR. Instead, such data will be automatically sent to the Operator’s data-server upon aircraft arrival to the airport.

“From production planning and maintenance management to logistics and real-time technical data coordination with the Airbus – the entire project required not only in-depth technical know-how, but also advanced project management skills. Amongst the greatest challenges was the need to organize all the necessary resources for different project stages in advance. From the perspective of aircraft modifications, this calls for a completely new level of aircraft maintenance expertise in an MRO organization,” shared Ievgen Oleksandrov, Lead Engineer at Engineering and Planning Department at FL Technics. The last of the five customer’s aircraft was ready in just 28 calendar days.