In July 2010, the Sichuan Taeco Project, located to the north of the runway of the Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport, will be up and running. It involves an investment of RMB1.2 billion will and the opening Phase 1 is an investment of RMB150 million. All of the development is concerned with aircraft maintenance.Lan Xinguo, chairman of Sichuan Airlines, said that Sichuan Taeco would become the largest aircraft maintenance base in China as, when completed, it could provide the maintenance services to four Airbus A340 series and four A320 series aircraft at the same time. And when completed it will employ 3,000 technical staff.
Last July, Sichuan Taeco Engineering Technology was formed with the support of Sichuan Province, Chengdu City and Shuangliu County and was directly jointly invested by Sichuan Airlines, Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering (which is associated with the Swire Group and Cathay Pacific), Taeco (Xiamen) Aircraft Engineering and Sichuan Haite Hi-tech. More than half of the shares are held by Sichuan Airlines and Haite Hi-tech.
China Civil Aviation Report reports the plan is to first maintain local passenger aircraft and then attract overseas airlines to bring their aircraft to Chengdu for overhaul.
Surrounding the main effort will be subsidiary services.
For example, a few months ago, Taikoo (Xiamen) Landing Gear Services, China’s first company to provide comprehensive repair/overhaul services to landing gear and related systems, opened in Xiamen on June 14. Again it is a joint venture, this time between between HAECO, TAECO, Xiamen Aviation Industry, Cathay Pacific Airways, Japan Airlines International, CAL-Asia Investment Inc, Xian Aircraft International and Shaanxi Liaoyuan Hydraulic System. The plan is it will be the Asia-Pacific region’s largest landing gear repair service center.