On 17 February 1936, Ansett Airways made its first flight from Hamilton to Essendon. This flight started an airline that required maintanence and an overhaul and component manufacturing facility was established at Essendon Airport.

Ansett's new facilities won contracts with the Department of Aircraft Production and United States Service of Supply to service, overhaul and convert aircraft of the RAAF and USAF fleets at the start of 1941.

During the 1950s, Ansett Airlines expanded its fleet by buying into Trans-Oceanic Airways which was flying Hythe 4-engined flying boats, two Catalinas, and three Sandringham flying boats. It also introduced its first pressurised aircraft, the Convair 340. Towards the end of the decade, Ansett Transport Industries bought the struggling Australian National Airways to create Ansett-ANA.

With aircraft maintanence growing with the fleet, Ansett built a new engineering facility at Tullamarine in 1972, only a year after the airport opened. This later included a jet engine overhaul complex built in the early 1980s. Now on a site of over 19 hectares, engineering facilities expanded again when Ansett built a new hanger after introducing the Boeing 767 aircraft, enabling three of these larger planes to be serviced simultaneously.

With the demise of Ansett airline operations in 2002, the engineering services business was retained under the name of Ansett Aviation Engineering Services (AAES). Through five years of administration, AAES continued to operate due to the commitment and reputation of its people. New business was secured and the engineering skills base continued to grow.

The AAES business was acquired by the John Holland Group in June 2007 under the banner of John Holland Aviation Services (JHAS).

It aims to combine the experience of the former AAES employees with the specialist contracting skills of the wider John Holland Group to drive the business forward and build a strong, independent MRO in Australia.