Lufthansa opens new A380 hangar

Lufthansa Technik has today opened the first section of the new A380 maintenance hangar in Frankfurt within around 20 months since the start of construction on the first phase of the facility. On about 25,000 square metres of floor space, there is enough room already in the completed stage of the hangar to carry out maintenance work, simultaneously, on two Airbus A380s or three Boeing 747s.

Lufthansa Chairman and CEO Wolfgang Mayrhuber said:

"Frankfurt will be the home and maintenance base of our fifteen A380s. We are investing in the Rhine-Main region and thereby bolstering the prospects for growth and employment. With this new hangar, we are ideally prepared for the first of our A380s. Their arrival will once again underline the significance of Frankfurt Airport as a world-leading air traffic hub."

The Prime Minister of the State of Hesse, Roland Koch, commended Lufthansa’s involvement: "The A380 hangar will lastingly upgrade and strengthen Frankfurt as an air traffic base, since no other German airport can claim such an aircraft maintenance facility. Today’s inauguration sends a further positive signal for the economic development of Frankfurt Airport and the region as well as underscoring Lufthansa’s commitment to Frankfurt as an air traffic base, which I wholeheartedly welcome."

The entire hangar system designed with the maintenance capacity for four A380s will be completed in 2015 and will be Europe’s biggest aircraft maintenance facility. Lufthansa is investing around 150 million euros in its construction. The airline has signed a 65-year land utilisation agreement with Fraport AG, allowing it to build and operate the hangar on a 17-hectare (about 42 acres) site to the southwest of Frankfurt Airport.

August Wilhelm Henningsen, Lufthansa Technik Chairman, said: "The A380 is superior in size to the dimensions of any previous aircraft type. This new maintenance hangar furnishes us with the capacities required to service the new aircraft. Its construction in two phases means that the fleet and hangar will grow in harmony with the market."

Construction of the A380 hangar is in the hands of a consortium headed by Ed. Züblin AG, Stuttgart. Key project partners are based in the Rhine-Main region.