Asia Digital Engineering Opens Huge Hangar In Kuala Lumpur

KUALA LUMPUR—Asia Digital Engineering (ADE) opened an L-shaped hangar on Sept. 26 that can accommodate 14 lines of narrowbody maintenance, making it the largest aircraft maintenance hangar in Malaysia.

ADE, part of Capital A Berhad like AirAsia, will use the 380,000 ft.2 hangar mostly for AirAsia maintenance, but it could also take third-party aircraft if slots become available.

Despite its enormous size, ADE’s new hangar will not provide enough capacity for its forecasted needs so it plans to build a four-line hangar close to its new facility.

Sepang Aircraft Engineering, an Airbus subsidiary that specializes in A320 and A321 maintenance, sits adjacent to the new ADE facility and in between it and the five-acre plot that ADE is evaluating for the four-line hangar, so it could potentially be sandwiched between two ADE facilities.

In addition, ADE is talking with the Malaysia Airports Holding Berhad to acquire a 20-acre plot to enable it to build another hangar about the size of the one that just opened.

However, Tan Sri Tony Fernandes, CEO of Capital A, says the company is also looking at alternatives outside of the Kuala Lumpur area.

“Today is a watershed day,” says Fernandes, citing how ADE developed its facilities, workforce, competencies and digitally innovated the past four years.

In addition to the new L-hangar, he points to ADE’s internally developed digital services—including the Aerotrade parts marketplace and Elevade, an aircraft health monitoring and predictive maintenance tool.

ADE is setting up various workshops, including composite, sheet metal, cabin interior, upholstery, oven and boiler, and 3D printing at the new facility.

It also will seek additional MRO capabilities to allow ADE to continually become more efficient, Fernandes says.

Mahesh Kumar, ADE’s CEO, told Aviation Week that the company is in discussions with an engine shop, but he would not say if it is owned by an OEM or a third-party provider.