WestJet signs deal with Lufthansa Technik for maintenance facility at Calgary airport

WestJet announced a multi-billion-dollar, long-term commercial agreement with German aircraft services firm Lufthansa Technik to build a new engine repair station in Calgary. Lufthansa Technik will establish and operate the aircraft engine maintenance facility at the Calgary airport to service WestJet’s approximately 50 Boeing 737 Max airplanes, which WestJet says make up around a quarter of its fleet. The airline is projected to have more than 130 of the aircraft before the end of the decade, WestJet CEO Alexis von Hoensbroech said. The facility will “ensure greater capacity, efficiency, cost certainty and rapid turnaround times for aircraft by servicing engines right here at our global home and global hub of operations,” he said at an announcement Thursday. Terry Duguid, the federal minister responsible for Prairies economic development Canada, called the facility a “game changer.”<br/>