Hellenic Aerospace Industry

Hellenic Aerospace Industry, known in Greece as EAB, was founded in 1975 by the Karamanlis government to give the country its own depot-level capability rather than sending military aircraft abroad for heavy work. It remains fully owned by the Greek state. The main industrial complex sits at Schimatari in Boeotia next to Tanagra air base, covering around 200,000 square metres, with corporate offices in Athens. It is the largest aeronautical and defence manufacturer in the country and its output is dominated by work for the Hellenic Air Force, Navy and security forces, with commercial and export work filling the gaps.

Maintenance is the backbone. HAI performs depot-level inspection, modification and upgrade of military and civil aircraft, including C-130 transports, F-16 fighters and helicopters. On the engine side it is one of a small number of authorised maintenance centres worldwide for the Rolls-Royce T56 turboprop, the engine that powers the C-130 and P-3, and it also supports Honeywell and Snecma powerplants. Electronics maintenance covers avionics boxes, radar, communications equipment and weapon system components, which the company both repairs and manufactures.

The aerostructures unit produces subassemblies and detail parts for commercial and military airframes using CNC machining, composite layup and specialised joining processes. This is the part of the business that reaches beyond Greece, feeding into international programmes as a supplier rather than a prime.

A research and development arm runs design and development studies, production support engineering and aerospace laboratory work. HAI has been a participant in nEUROn, the multinational unmanned combat air vehicle demonstrator led by Dassault, which is the company's most visible entry into unmanned systems. Training is a distinct business line and a certified one. HAI runs an EASA Part 147 approved training centre delivering aircraft maintenance technician courses, an aircraft dispatcher course and advanced simulator training, serving both its own workforce and outside students.

The programme that has defined the last decade is the F-16 Viper upgrade. Working with Lockheed Martin, HAI is converting 84 Hellenic Air Force F-16C and F-16D aircraft to the Block 72 Viper standard at Tanagra. The tenth aircraft was handed back in 2023, the forty-second in September 2025 and the fiftieth in 2026, a pace that points at completion around 2027. The company also carries out modernisation of the Hellenic Navy's P-3B Orion maritime patrol fleet.

Headcount has moved around with the state of the order book. Public figures have put the workforce near two thousand earlier in the 2020s, and the company has run repeated hiring rounds since, advertising 145 posts in 2025 and 268 in 2026 as the Viper line and follow-on work absorbed capacity. Annual revenue has been reported in the region of 290 million dollars. The company's own framing of itself is a service one rather than a product one, built around keeping Greek military aircraft flying every day of the year, and its published capability list reads accordingly.