The first plane should be arriving soon at Premier Aviation's new service hangar at the Windsor Airport.
The mammoth facility is the size of at least two football fields and it's expected 300 people will eventually work there.
"We're currently 50 people here, and I would say the majority of people coming here are from the region," said Louis Devault, general manager of the facility. "We've hired a lot of local talent that was working in some other industries; welders, machinists, painters. These are all people that come from here. A lot of the administrative personnel also are all from the local region."
Walter Marshall, 51, is one of the new hires. He was laid off from the Nemak plant in Windsor three years ago, but has experience in aviation. He recently attended Algonquin College to complete his pilots course.
"They offered me a position here as a mechanic," he said of Premier. "I was a mechanic with the military for almost 20 years, and they selected me as one of the candidates to come back and work for Premier."
Devault expects to hire hundreds of people over the next two years as the operation grows.
The hangar cost more than $20 million dollars to build. The hangar can hold two 737s and a 747 at the same time.