Ontic opens UK MRO hub as part of expansion

Ontic has opened a maintenance, repair and overhaul hub in Tewkesbury, in the west of England, continuing a period of expansion. The site is a refurbished former print works of 6,690sq m (72,000sq ft), in which the company has invested USD15 million. It brings all of Ontic's UK MRO activities under one roof from nearby factories outside Cheltenham and Gloucester.

The opening follows a leadership change at the UK- and US-based company. Gareth Hall, executive chairman and outgoing chief executive, said growth will continue. Over 12 years the business has expanded, with revenues rising fivefold to USD800 million and staff numbers increasing from 400 to nearly 2,500.

Ontic's model differs from that of other aerospace suppliers. Rather than distributing parts made by others or designing its own, the company negotiates licences to keep producing components for commercial, military and business aviation platforms whose original intellectual property holders no longer want to build them, but which operators and manufacturers still need to keep aircraft flying and assembly lines running. Some products are niche. Ontic supplies actuation components for the Boeing B-52 bomber, which entered service in 1955. Hall said the average age of an airframe Ontic supports is 14 to 16 years, and that many remain in volume production, with about a quarter of output going directly to assembly lines.

The Tewkesbury site takes Ontic's property count into double figures. A manufacturing line in Weston, near Miami in Florida, was leased in June and joins an MRO centre in the neighbouring area.