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RIYADH: Saudia Aerospace Engineering Industries is setting up a massive MRO village to fulfill Saudi Arabia’s growing demand for maintenance, repair and operations in the aviation space and to match pace with its expanding fleet of airlines.

In an interview with Arab News, Fahd Cynndy, CEO of SAEI, said that the village, measuring 1 million square meters, is set to be built at the King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah and hopes to earn SR10 billion ($2.6 billion) in topline revenue within the next decade.

SAEI, the MRO arm of Saudi Arabian Airlines, will establish 11 hangars large enough to service four wide-bodied aircraft simultaneously.

This new arm in Jeddah’s airport has also spurred demand for maintenance engineers in the region, with the company sourcing trained mechanics from Prince Sultan Aviation academy to be later employed at the MRO village.

“We’ve been averaging 30 to 35 new mechanics that we train a year through Prince Sultan Aviation Academy training center. That number is now more than eightfold; we’re looking at 220 mechanics a year,” Cynndy told Arab News.

The company is also working on multiple agreements with aviation pioneers such as Airbus, who will soon be opening its business and service center in the Middle East, pointed out Cynndy.

The company plans to capture a sizeable share of the aviation market in the Middle East and North Africa once the MRO village is operational.

According to Cynndy, aviation specialists worldwide described this village as an “enclosed end-to-end solution that has not been seen before in the world.”