Sanad, the aerospace engineering arm of Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Company, has announced the establishment of a AED 480 million ($130 million) aircraft engine Repair Centre of Excellence in the Al Ain Region. Unveiled at Make it in the Emirates 2026, the UAE’s flagship industrial platform, the greenfield facility is designed to consolidate advanced engine parts repair operations under a single integrated platform. It will support all major commercial engine types and is expected to process up to 65,000 components annually once fully operational by 2030. The project forms part of Sanad’s broader strategy to become the world’s fifth-largest engine MRO provider and will create more than 350 skilled jobs in Al Ain.
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Key Overview
- Investment value: AED 480 million ($130 million)
- Location: Al Ain Region, Abu Dhabi, UAE
- Facility size: Approximately 17,600 square metres
- Projected annual capacity: 65,000 parts repaired
- Target completion: 2030
- Engine platforms covered: Trent 700, V2500, LEAP, GEnx, and GTF
- Jobs created: More than 350
- Current customer base: Over 80 airlines, lessors, and operators worldwide
- 2025 engine inductions: 230 (projected to exceed 500 annually by 2035)
- 2025 revenue: AED 7 billion ($1.9 billion), up 41% year-on-year
- Contracted backlog: AED 38 billion with over 1,000 shop visit commitments across three decades
A Strategic Bet on In-House Repair Capabilities
The global aircraft engine MRO sector is valued at approximately USD 47 billion in 2026 and is projected to reach USD 75 billion by 2032, growing at a compound annual rate of nearly 8%. Within that expanding market, engine repair has emerged as the single most important factor governing turnaround times, cost efficiency, and airline operational performance. Sanad’s new Centre of Excellence is a direct response to that structural shift. Rather than relying on third-party repair vendors, the facility will bring critical component repair functions in-house, enabling the company to control quality, compress cycle times, and capture more value from every engine shop visit.
The decision was announced by the Abu Dhabi Media Office during Make it in the Emirates 2026, the four-day industrial event that attracted 146,329 visitors and 1,245 exhibitors across 12 sectors at ADNEC Centre Abu Dhabi. Mansoor Janahi, Managing Director and Group CEO of Sanad, explained the rationale for the investment, stating that building repair capabilities in-house is critical to how the company scales, improves turnaround times, creates in-country value, and delivers greater value to its customers.
What the Facility Will Look Like
The approximately 17,600-square-metre greenfield facility will be purpose-built from the ground up, situated in Al Ain’s growing aerospace park, where Sanad has already secured long-term land rights. Once completed by 2030, the centre will consolidate repair operations across all five of Sanad’s current engine platforms: the Rolls-Royce Trent 700, the IAE V2500, the CFM International LEAP, the GE Aerospace GEnx, and — from 2028 — the Pratt & Whitney Geared Turbofan (GTF).
In 2025, Sanad’s existing operations inspected more than 43,000 parts and repaired over 19,000 components across 230 engine inductions. The new facility aims to nearly triple that repair output, with projected volumes reaching 65,000 parts repaired annually. By housing these capabilities on a single integrated platform, Sanad intends to eliminate the inefficiencies that come from farming repair work out to multiple external vendors — a challenge that currently adds days and cost to engine shop visit cycles across the global MRO industry.
According to Aviation Week, the centre will be located at Al Ain Aerospace Park, approximately 100 miles east of the company’s Abu Dhabi headquarters, placing it alongside Sanad’s forthcoming GTF MRO shop and twin test cell complex currently under construction.
Scaling Ahead of Demand
Sanad’s engine shop visit volumes are expected to more than double over the coming decade, rising from 230 inductions in 2025 to over 500 annually by 2035. That trajectory is underpinned by a contracted backlog of AED 38 billion, encompassing more than 1,000 shop visit commitments over the next three decades. The company’s 2025 financial results reflected this momentum: revenues climbed 41% year-on-year to AED 7 billion ($1.9 billion), making it a second consecutive year of record performance.
A large part of that growth has come from aggressive customer acquisition. In 2025 alone, Sanad added 24 airline customers — including Malaysia-based AirAsia and flag carrier Royal Jordanian — bringing its total customer base to more than 80 airlines, lessors, and operators. The company also expanded its workforce by 42% last year, reaching approximately 855 employees with 306 new hires, and pushed its Emiratisation rate to 36%, up from 23.1% in 2022.
The Repair Centre of Excellence alone is expected to generate more than 350 additional skilled jobs, with a strong emphasis on Emirati talent development. Sanad’s CEO has previously stated that the company’s long-term goal is to grow its workforce to between 1,700 and 2,000 employees and to raise its Emiratisation rate above 50%.
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The GTF Facility: A Parallel Expansion
The Repair Centre of Excellence is not Sanad’s only major project in Al Ain. In February 2025, Pratt & Whitney announced a 30-year agreement to add Sanad to its global GTF MRO network, making the Al Ain facility the first GTF maintenance shop in the South Asia, Middle East, and North Africa region. That separate facility, spanning 64,000 square metres, will handle PW1100G-JM and PW1500G engines for the Airbus A320neo and A220 families, as well as the PW1900G engine for the Embraer E-Jet E2. It is expected to be operational by the end of 2028, with capacity for 350 engine inductions annually.
In November 2025, Sanad signed a 50-year land lease agreement with Abu Dhabi Airports securing two plots totalling 70,000 square metres within the Al Ain Aerospace Park. These sites will house both the GTF MRO centre and twin 12×12 test cells being built by a subsidiary of France’s Safran Group, with capacity to support over 500 engine tests annually. A turnkey contract for the test cell project was awarded to Safran Test Cells during the year.
Taken together, the GTF facility and the new Repair Centre of Excellence position Al Ain as the anchor of Sanad’s next-generation aerospace cluster and a significant node in the global engine MRO supply chain. Upon completion, Sanad will become the only independent MRO provider in the MENA region with engine repair capabilities at this scale.
The Broader Context: Make it in the Emirates 2026
Sanad’s announcement was one of several headline-grabbing commitments made during the fifth edition of Make it in the Emirates, which concluded on 7 May. Sultan Al Jaber, UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, used the platform to announce cumulative industrial offtake opportunities of AED 180 billion over the next decade — an increase of AED 12 billion over an existing AED 168 billion pipeline — with plans to localise the production of more than 5,000 products. The UAE’s industrial sector contribution has reached AED 200 billion, representing a 70% increase since 2021, while industrial exports have climbed to AED 262 billion.
More than 200 agreements were signed during the event across investments, offtakes, projects, financing, and enablement programmes. Among the largest:
TA’ZIZ and Alpha Dhabi Holding signed a strategic collaboration agreement for approximately AED 36.7 billion ($10 billion) in capital investment in new industrial chemicals at Al Ruwais Industrial City. Subject to feasibility studies and regulatory approvals, the partnership could produce up to 14 new chemicals, adding roughly 2.2 million tonnes per annum of capacity to the TA’ZIZ ecosystem. These products — including styrene, acrylic acid derivatives, polyols, and epoxy resins — are aimed at import substitution and strengthening domestic supply chains.
ADNOC unveiled AED 200 billion ($55 billion) in planned project awards spanning 2026 to 2028 across its upstream and downstream operations. The investment is designed to supercharge UAE manufacturing capacity and strengthen industrial resilience. Alongside this, TA’ZIZ announced AED 104.6 billion ($28.5 billion) in long-term procurement and feedstock deals across its chemicals portfolio, including methanol, PVC, and caustic soda.
Khalifa Economic Zones Abu Dhabi (KEZAD) signed AED 2.1 billion in deals with downstream industrial companies, while the Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO) confirmed AED 1.5 billion in support for new and expanded factories. The Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology and Emirates Development Bank launched the AED 1 billion National Industrial Resilience Fund, part of broader efforts to finance industrial resilience across the country. MoIAT also secured a further AED 18 billion in competitive financing from Mashreq Bank, Dubai Islamic Bank, and the Emirates Development Bank.
A Structural Shift in Global MRO
Sanad’s investment comes at a time when the broader commercial aircraft MRO market is at a historic inflection point. Soaring air travel demand, combined with persistent delays in new aircraft deliveries by Boeing and Airbus, has forced airlines to keep older fleets in service longer than planned. This is generating intense pressure on MRO shops globally, with engine maintenance accounting for roughly 40% to 45% of total MRO spending.
The capacity crunch is particularly acute for engine repairs. As newer engine technologies such as the GTF and LEAP enter service and begin to require first-run maintenance, they are competing for shop slots alongside older engine types like the V2500 and CFM56, whose retirement timelines have been extended. The result is a seller’s market where turnaround times have stretched and costs have risen, creating an opening for MRO providers that can invest in capacity ahead of demand.
For Sanad, this dynamic plays directly into its strategy. The company operates across both legacy and next-generation engine platforms, giving it a diversified portfolio that captures demand from both segments. Its CEO has described this approach as a way to future-proof the business — ensuring demand regardless of whether airlines extend the life of their existing fleets or accelerate the transition to newer aircraft types.
Al Ain as an Aerospace Hub
The concentration of Sanad’s investments in Al Ain is no accident. Abu Dhabi has deliberately positioned the city — already home to a military MRO operation run by AMMROC — as the centre of an emerging aerospace cluster. Sanad first established a presence in Al Ain in early 2025 through a collaboration with AMMROC, using one of the military MRO specialist’s facilities to support 50 additional engine inductions annually. That partnership expanded Sanad’s total production capacity from 250 to 300 engines per year and introduced Cleaning, Non-Destructive Testing, and Inspection services that offloaded approximately 7,000 man-hours annually from Sanad’s Abu Dhabi headquarters.
With the GTF facility, the Repair Centre of Excellence, the twin test cells, and the AMMROC collaboration all operating in the same region, Al Ain is being transformed into a purpose-built aerospace corridor that can serve both airline customers and third-party MRO providers requiring specialised repair solutions.
What Comes Next
The sixth edition of Make it in the Emirates has already been announced for 3 to 6 May 2027, offering a natural milestone for tracking Sanad’s progress. Between now and then, the company is expected to advance construction on both the GTF shop and the Repair Centre of Excellence, continue growing its engine induction volumes, and press forward with its Emiratisation and talent development agenda. With a contracted backlog stretching three decades and global engine MRO demand showing no sign of easing, Sanad’s $130 million bet on Al Ain looks set to pay off long before the facility opens its doors in 2030.
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