Lufthansa Technik has
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, saying, "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."
The entire hangar system designed with the maintenance capacity for four A380s will be completed in 2015 and will be
one of Europe’s biggest aircraft maintenance facilities. 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. Stuttgart. Key project partners are based in the
Rhine-Main region.
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