✈️ MROC’s 10,000-Square-Foot Hangar Accommodates Only Two Aircraft
On September 16, 2026, Universal Aviation Costa Rica announced the addition of an approximately 10,000-square-foot general aviation hangar at Juan Santamaría International Airport in San José (MROC/SJO), offering transient, overnight, weekend, and long-term indoor parking services. Under the current layout, the hangar can simultaneously accommodate one midsize business jet and one smaller aircraft, making the new facility more of a low-capacity, targeted service than a large-scale centralized parking operation. Avi-Go data show that from August 20 to September 18, 2026, MROC recorded a total of 473 business aircraft movements, comprising 250 departures and 223 arrivals; at the airport level, each departure or arrival is counted as one movement. Flight activity over the past 30 days provides Universal with a business base for reaching transient and overnight parking customers, but business aircraft movement volume is not equivalent to the number of aircraft staying overnight simultaneously and cannot be used to calculate hangar utilization.
Impact: The two-aircraft layout capacity means the hangar is more specifically suited to high-priority needs such as protection from severe weather, privacy, or long-term parking. Once one midsize aircraft occupies a space, the remaining capacity is primarily available to smaller aircraft, requiring Universal to manage capacity carefully across different parking durations.
Recommendation: Universal could separately track the number of requests, actual occupancy duration, and number of requests it could not accommodate for transient, overnight, weekend, and long-term parking, with the data further segmented between midsize and smaller aircraft. After a full operating cycle has been completed, it can then determine whether the 10,000-square-foot space should retain its current layout or whether the parking-position mix should be adjusted.