Gulfstream Aerospace and Jet Aviation held a joint grand opening on Tuesday of their new MRO and FBO facilities at Van Nuys Airport (VNY) in California. Together, the two companies owned by General Dynamics occupy 118,000 sq ft of facilities on 17 acres at the northwest corner of VNY, where they eventually plan to employ 130 workers.
Jet Aviation officially opened its 52,000-sq-ft FBO and parking hangar in November, while Gulfstream’s 66,000-sq-ft MRO—including a 43,000-sq-ft service hangar—opened in early December. “We could have not picked a more strategic location,” Gulfstream customer support president Derek Zimmerman said in a speech to the 125 guests attending the Tuesday evening event. More than 130 Gulfstream operators use VNY as their business aviation base, and more than 200 Gulfstream operators are based in Southern California.
For Gulfstream, VNY is the third of five MRO facilities it has expanded or will open in less than a year. In Appleton, Wisconsin, it completed a $40 million hangar expansion in August, while a month later it opened a $55 million expansion at its headquarters in Savannah, Georgia. It also plans to have new maintenance facilities in Palm Beach, Florida, and in Farnborough, England, come online this year.
- Business Aviation