Bombardier Aerospace will open its first wholly owned European aircraft service centre at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

The facility will feature 45,639ft² of hangar space and will be equipped to perform a range of light to heavy maintenance tasks.

The new addition to Bombardier’s company-owned aircraft service centre network of six facilities in North America will enable the firm to better support its growing fleet of over 550 Learjet, Challenger and Global aircraft in the region.

Bombardier customer services and support vice-president Andy Nureddin said the creation of a European aircraft service centre is key to company’s strategy of expanding its customer services offering into new regions of the world.

“This announcement builds on our comprehensive customer services offering in the region, ranging from training facilities to our PartsExpress delivery service and mobile response teams for rapid on-site support,” he said.

The European aircraft service centre is expected to begin operations in early 2010.