MTU Maintenance Zhuhai Celebrates 5,000th Successful Shop Visit

MTU Maintenance has announced that the MRO has completed 5,000 shop visits at its Zhuhai location and celebrated the milestone with the facility’s entire staff.

“We are sincerely delighted to achieve this milestone,” says Li Xin, general manager of China Southern Technics and Chairman of MTU Maintenance Zhuhai, “This is not only a landmark achievement of the cooperation between both shareholders, but also an important step for China Southern Airlines in implementing its maintenance industrialization strategy.”

Li continues, “In the future, China Southern Airlines will continue to support MTU Maintenance Zhuhai in building a world-class engine maintenance brand, providing better quality and shorter turnaround times for China Southern fleet’s maintenance, contributing to the green and low-carbon transformation of civil aviation and the high-quality development of the aviation industry in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, while also offering excellent MRO services to global customers.”

“The partnership between China Southern Airlines and MTU Aero Engines has created one of the most successful aerospace joint ventures in China and an extremely efficient narrowbody engine MRO facility that is well on track to becoming the largest of its type in the world,” adds Michael Schreyögg, chief program officer at MTU Aero Engines.

“We are very proud of this achievement, their excellent turnaround times as well as their continued drive for safety, quality and operational excellence. I would like to thank our worldwide customers, our great staff and our partner China Southern Airlines for their commitment and trust,” says Schreyögg.

It took MTU’s Zuhai team less than two years to add 1,000 shop visits to the MRO’s list of successes. This is a reduced timeframe, as reaching 4,000 shop visits from 3,000 previously took almost three years.

MTU Maintenance notes key factors in the team’s enhanced efficiency, such as:

• Zuhai’s training center providing a central option for employe education and upskilling engine experts to close the talent gap
• The digitalization of MRO processes and ongoing improvement of operational procedures
• Expanded capacity due to the new Jinwan facility opening earlier in 2025

“Reaching this milestone is only the beginning of MTU Maintenance Zhuhai’s next phase,” Gert Wagner, MTU Maintenance Zhuhai’s CEO, explains, “We are already one of the biggest MRO facilities for the CFM56, LEAP, PW1100G-JM and V2500 engines on the global market.”

Wagner adds, “Now, we can refocus on our future goals, and with this team as well as the production improvements, there is no doubt we will achieve increasingly more milestones.”

MTU Maintenance Zhuha has maintained a focus on narrowbody engines over the past few years, with the secondary MRO site adding to the company’s reputation as the largest MRO service provider for the engine type.

MTU Maintenance Zhuhai is a global MRO and a 50/50 joint venture between China Southern Airlines Ltd. and MTU Aero Engines.