Lufthansa Technik Budapest, a joint venture of Lufthansa Technik and Malev Hungarian Airlines, celebrated its 5th birthday with representatives from customers, authorities, and employees. The company was established in spring 2001 by Lufthansa Technik, the leading provider for maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) of modern airliners. Since then more than 80 aircraft underwent heavy maintenance in Budapest. Altogether more than 100 events, including light maintenance and modification programs took place.
The company in which Malev Hungarian Airlines holds a 15 per cent stake is located at Ferihegy Airport and therefore ideally located for customers in Eastern and Central Europe and the CIS. Lufthansa Technik Budapest is specialized in heavy maintenance for the Airbus A320 family and Boeing 737 Classic. Together with its sister company Shannon Aerospace in Ireland it forms the heavy maintenance network for short-haul aircraft of Lufthansa Technik Group in Europe.
"Lufthansa Technik Budapest is very well positioned and holds an excellent reputation in the MRO industry. We are on a growth path and continuously increasing productivity and overhaul slots," said Marek Wernicke, Chief Executive Officer of Lufthansa Technik Budapest. "Since we achieved much shorter turnaround times over the last months we are heading for not more than 26 days for a heavy maintenance event including painting."
"We are very proud to see the development of Lufthansa Technik Budapest over the last years. As our main activity in Eastern Europe it is a key access to a fast-growing aviation market with more and more Western-built aircraft and rising stars from the low-cost arena," added Dr. Thomas Stüger, Chief Executive Product & Services of Lufthansa Technik AG.
"Budapest Airport is delighted that Lufthansa Technik has built its Central and Eastern European base in Budapest. We are proud to be partners in supporting this centre of aviation excellence and look forward to a long and fruitful relationship," said Stewart Wingate, CEO of Budapest Airport Pte Ltd.
Lufthansa Technik invested nearly 20 million Euros in the joint venture after the lease contract for the hangar was signed in May 2001. In the beginning the Hungarian joint venture was focusing on the overhaul of Boeing 737 Classic. A couple of months later it added the Airbus A320 family. In the two-bay hangar two narrowbody aircraft of the same type can be overhauled at the same time. Additionally, thanks to an ultra-modern ventilation system the aircraft can be painted on the spot. Therefore the Hungarian overhaul specialists can dispense with time consuming movements of aircraft.
The workforce of more than 330 highly skilled employees services a customer base of 14 different airlines and aircraft operators, including Lufthansa, Wizz Air or Austrian Airlines. Apart from heavy maintenance Lufthansa Technik Budapest started also to provide base maintenance and meanwhile the joint venture also supplies line maintenance for airlines on Ferihegy Airport, especially for Wizz Air.
