Giant hangar sends Aquino’s dream soaring

The 35-meter-high and 8,500 square meter hangar built to make the world’s largest passenger aircraft flight-worthy had President Benigno Aquino III thinking of his own grand ambitions for the country.

Its being located in a special economic zone inside the Villamor Airbase and manned by Filipinos have convinced Mr. Aquino his lofty goals are possible.

“Looking at this hangar, and reading through the history and the development of the Airbus A380, only convinces me of our own ambitions for the Philippines,” Mr. Aquino said late Friday at the inauguration of Lufthansa Technik Philippines’ (LTP) third maintenance hangar at the MacroAsia Special Economic Zone, which is designed to accommodate the Airbus A380—the world’s largest commercial aircraft.

“Our countrymen who will be manning this hangar will be part of a small group of people around the world with the opportunity and the know-how to service one of the world’s best, most coveted aircrafts,” he said.

“Perhaps in the future a great Philippine nation can have those A380s not only for maintenance, but to fly in tourists, investors and balikbayans, contributing to the creation of a society where working hard and following the rules get you to your most treasured goals,” the President said.

Ambitious project

According to the Airbus website, “the double-deck A380 is the world’s largest commercial aircraft flying today, with capacity to carry 525 passengers in a comfortable three-class configuration, and up to 853 in a single-class configuration.”

Airbus said the A380’s two decks offer 50 percent more floor surface than any other high-capacity aircraft. It has two full-length passenger levels with true wide-body dimensions: a main deck and an upper deck, which are conveniently linked by fixed stairs forward and aft.

LTP, a joint venture between Germany’s Lufthansa Technik and the Philippines’ MacroAsia Corp., has invested $30 million to build the cavernous aircraft maintenance facility. It is expected to employ 400 Filipinos in high-technology and high-skilled jobs.

The joint venture has already provided 2,700 jobs to Filipinos in the aircraft maintenance industry.

“The A380 was an ambitious project, and this hangar, which seeks to attract the A380 to land here, is an ambitious project as well,” Mr. Aquino said.

“We share your goal: We want this hangar here because it will provide employment to many of our countrymen. We want this hangar here because we want our workforce to be recognized for their skill in their professions by companies like LTP,” he added.

LTP employees and Lufthansa Technical Training Philippines’ (LTTP) instructors received extensive classroom and hands-on training at the Lufthansa facilities in Frankfurt in 2011 to be able to take on the challenges of handling the maintenance requirements of the A380.

Filipino staff also received A380-specific courses at the LTTP training center in Manila.

The A380 hangar is expected to begin conducting checks and cabin modifications for the A380 by April.

“Completed in 10 months, our new hangar is ready to welcome its launch customer—Qantas Airways from Australia. Come April, Qantas will fly in its first aircraft for maintenance check,” said Gerald Frielinghaus, the LTP president and CEO.

Even before the completion of its third hangar, LTP and its Filipino workers at Ninoy Aquino International Airport had already been conducting return checks and cabin modifications for various Airbus aircraft for such clients as Philippine Airlines, Lufthansa, Qantas, Virgin Atlantic, LAN Chile and AirAsia X.

Investor confidence

Philippine Airlines chair Lucio Tan, one of the partners in LTP, said having an A380 hangar in the country is a sign of foreign investors’ confidence in Filipino workers, particularly those in the aircraft maintenance field.

“This is the first such facility in the Philippines and only the fourth of its kind in the world, dedicated to the Airbus A380, the largest commercial passenger jet,” Tan said.

“We owe this to the solid reputation Lufthansa Technik Philippines built and brought to world attention since it established its first repair structure in the Philippines more than 10 years ago,” he added.

The President said the inauguration of the Airbus 380 maintenance facility has come at an interesting time in Philippine aviation.

“Liberalizing the aviation sector has been one of the key reforms implemented by my administration. We want a more competitive industry, and from what we have seen, the liberalization programs are working,” he said.

August Wilhelm Henningsen, Lufthansa Technik AG’s executive board chair, said the Philippines’ workforce—English- speaking and with a natural affinity for technical and mechanical work—was one of the company’s key strengths which allowed it to attract clients from all over the world.

“What we have here is essentially an expansion of our services,” Henningsen said.

“We can service the A380, but this same facility can also be used for A340s, A330s and the (smaller) A320,” he said.

At present, LTP already has two other maintenance hangars in the same facility serving 30 overhaul customers worldwide. It has 20 approvals and licenses for various kinds of maintenance services from aviation regulators like the Federal Aviation Administration and the European EASA.

‘We are the best’

The newest hangar can simultaneously accommodate maintenance work on one wide-body and two narrow-body aircraft.

“With the new hangar, we’ll be able to keep up with the increasing demand for technical services for long-haul Airbus aircraft, particularly in the Asian market,” Henningsen said.

“By adding A380 capability, it underscores LTP’s role as a global competence center for Airbus overhauls,” he said.

LTP chair Washington SyCip said the opening of the new hangar “serves to affirm the Filipino aviation workers’ place among the world’s best, and underscores LTP’s long-term plans of operating in the Philippines.”