XEOS Aircraft Engine Service Centre is open

XEOS, the new aircraft engine service centre located in Środa Śląska near Wrocław, is officially open.

The company is a joint venture of Lufthansa Technik (51%) and GE Aviation (49%) and is a service centre for GEnx-2B and GE9X engines. It was built in a record time of 16 months. The first commercial engine was accepted for repair in April 2019. In 2019, a total of about 20 engines will have been inducted for service here. After reaching its maturity in 2023 the plant will repair more than 200 engines per year. 

The grand opening ceremony was attended by representatives of the Chancellery of the President of the Republic of Poland and the Polish government as well as Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany Rolf Nikel and Christian Cardona, Political and Economic Consul of the US General Consulate. Carsten Spohr, CEO and Chairman of the Executive Board of Deutsche Lufthansa, Dr. Johannes Bussmann, CEO of Lufthansa Technik, David Joyce, Vice Chair, GE and President & CEO, GE Aviation and Jean Lydon-Rodgers, President and CEO, GE Aviation Services represented the two shareholders.

Dr. Johannes Bussmann, CEO of Lufthansa Technik, commented: "For decades, Lufthansa Technik has been known as a centre of excellence in the maintenance, repair, and overhaul business of engines and engine components. The succesful opening of the XEOS engine shop with our partner GE is a cornerstone for our long-term growth strategy to offer comprehensive MRO services also for the latest generations of aircraft engines. On this occasion I would like to thank the whole XEOS team. Over the past two years you have done an extraordinary job to realize this project. You can be really proud of the creation of hundreds of high-level technical jobs and the implementation of the highest levels of international environmental and social compliance standards."

Jean Lydon-Rodgers, President & CEO, GE Aviation Services, said, "XEOS represents a unique collaboration between Lufthansa Technik and GE Aviation. Our combined capabilities and technological knowledge have merge to create one of the most advanced MRO facilities in the world for the GEnx-2B and GE9X engines. I congratulate the XEOS team for building this world-class MRO engine shop and look forward to a long future of working together to meet our customers' services needs."

Thomas Böttger, XEOS Managing Director of Business said: "In June 2015, at the Paris Air Show, two global aviation industry leaders – Lufthansa Technik and GE Aviation – took the decision to jointly develop a modern service centre for GEnx-2B and GE9X engines. Today we are fulfilling this dream and we are proud to take up further challenges. XEOS means innovative technologies, world-class solutions as well as the highest quality and safety standards."

The joint venture partners invested about PLN 1 billion (about 250mln USD)  to construct the facility and their own training centre from scratch, along with a test cell which is still in the ongoing second construction phase of the project.

Ultimately, the plant will employ about 600 people. At the moment XEOS team consists of 300 people: aircraft engine mechanics, engineers, logistics specialists and administration staff. They come not only from Środa Śląska and Lower Silesia  but from all over the world – with 12 nationalities in total. A considerable part of production staff have only started to become experts in the aviation industry in the XEOS centre. It has been possible owing to an 18-month theoretical and practical training programme, conducted in XEOS Training Centre in Bielany Wrocławskie and in similar facilities of Lufthansa Technik and GE Aviation – in  Germany and the UK.