Lufthansa Technik AG is stepping up its presence in Berlin and plans to build a new aircraft maintenance hangar at the future Berlin Brandenburg International (BBI) airport. The new hangar, which will have three bays for short- and medium-range aircraft, will be used to maintain Lufthansa aircraft from 2012. At the same time it will be possible to expand the capacity available for other customers of Lufthansa Technik in Berlin.
Thomas Rueckert, head of Lufthansa Technik's Aircraft Maintenance Center Berlin, is confident about the future: "The construction of the major Berlin Brandenburg International (BBI) Airport will significantly increase the demand for premium-grade MRO services there. As well as looking after Lufthansa's needs here in Berlin, we intend to win new business and new customers for ourselves once the airport opens."
The Maintenance Center at Schoenefeld airport has been offering maintenance and repair services for aircraft in the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 families for two decades. Today the 450-strong workforce carries out 100 or so major and almost 200 minor checks every year in the two maintenance hangars on the eastern side of the airport.
In 2009, 360,000 man-hours of labor flowed into the various technical services provided for short-haul aircraft belonging to Lufthansa and other customers - among them Condor Berlin, Germania, Germanwings, easyJet and Hamburg International. For the year 2010, Lufthansa Technik is expecting a further small increase in utilization in Berlin.
Lufthansa Bombardier Aviation Services (LBAS) with its staff of 150 highly skilled employees, which is also based at Berlin Schoenefeld airport, is also optimistic about the future. Specializing in the maintenance of Bombardier business jets and the only Bombardier service center outside North America, LBAS is one of the leading providers of these services in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Lufthansa Technik. The Lufthansa Technik Group, with more than 30 subsidiaries and about 26,000 employees worldwide, is one of the leading manufacturer-independent providers of services for the aviation industry. In 2009, the Group's overall revenues stood at 4 billion euros. Lufthansa Technik is licensed internationally as a repair, production and development enterprise. The Group's portfolio encompasses the entire spectrum of services in the areas of maintenance, repair, overhaul, modification and conversion, engines and components.
