Lufthansa Technik Reports Record Volume of Work in Berlin
When the Berlin Air Show 2008 gets underway, the Lufthansa Technik maintenance center in Berlin-Schönefeld will be busy performing its 1,000 base check since the facility opened its doors in 1991. There has been a tremendous increase in demand for base maintenance services, as the record workload for the Berlin service center in 2007 confirms: The facility's 320 staff clocked up a total of over 330,000 hours' work on short-haul aircraft operated by Lufthansa and numerous other customers.
Thomas Rückert, who heads the Aircraft Maintenance Center in Berlin, is most pleased with these results: "Our technicians have earned an excellent reputation throughout the industry by virtue of their skills and ability to provide flexible solutions." The Berlin service center specializes in the maintenance of Boeing 737s and aircraft of the Airbus 320 family. Apart from Lufthansa, which accounts for roughly half of the Berlin facility's revenues, other customers include Air Berlin, Germania and Condor Berlin. For the last four years, the low-cost carrier EasyJet, which has Airbus A319s stationed in Schönefeld, has also become a regular visitor to Lufthansa Technik in Berlin.
On average, the center carries out base maintenance checks on three aircraft at a time which, in addition to the numerous general maintenance, repair and overhaul tasks, also involve extensive instrument and system checks, system and cabin upgrades, and detailed airframe inspections.
The work to be carried out during each maintenance check is specified in a 6,000-page manual consisting of individual job cards. The mechanics work through each checklist item by item, documenting the results in a report. The maintenance hangars extend over a surface area of 8,000 m² and can accommodate up to 5 parked aircraft at a time, providing plenty of space in which to carry out the maintenance work and any urgent repairs that might be necessary.
In addition to these base maintenance services, Lufthansa Technik provides its customers with round-the-clock operational support at Schönefeld airport. These so-called line maintenance activities, usually carried out while an aircraft is on a night stop, mainly involve minor routine checks and other, unscheduled maintenance and repairs. This service is offered to operators of aircraft belonging to the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 families, as well as for the Airbus models A300, A310, A330 and A340, and the Boeing 757 and 767.
Visitors to the Berlin Air Show will have an opportunity to observe the 1,000th base maintenance check in progress at the Lufthansa Technik hangar. The aircraft in question, a Boeing 737-500, was built in 1991 - the same year in which the Berlin service centre opened for business - and has been in service with Lufthansa ever since carrying the tailsign D-ABIL and the name "Memmingen". Once it has completed the check and undergone several "touch-ups", the aircraft will receive its Certificate of Release to Service and once again take to the sky, just like its 999 predecessors.