As the A380 goes through its paces in the skies above Le Bourget, August Henningsen may spare a moment to admire the surprising grace of the Airbus behemoth. But the Lufthansa Technik chairman, attending the show to preside over a couple of major announcements, is more likely to be thinking of what it represents to the company in current investments and potential earnings.
Hamburg-headquartered LHT is not only the technical arm of the German national airline but also one of the world’s top providers of maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) services and corporate/VIP completions of single-aisle and widebody airliners.
Skills
This is a set of skills that has put the company squarely in the middle of the picture as Airbus prepares to put the first money-earning A380 into the hands of launch operator Singapore Airlines later this year. Over the last few years Lufthansa Technik has bet heavily on the commercial success of the A380. It is building giant hangars at Lufthansa’s main base Frankfurt and in Beijing, home of its Ameco Beijing joint venture with Air China. It is partnered with Roll-Royce in the new N3 engine overhaul facility at Arnstadt in central Germany, and with Air France in the Spairliners A380 spares support venture. And it has played a key role in the development of maintenance procedures and training for the big airliner.
Work on the Frankfurt hangar is well under way, with the huge roofbeams on site and ready to be raised into position. The finished building will be able to accommodate up to four A380s at a time. The foundations for its Beijing counterpart, which is set to open before the Olympic Games next year, were laid last September. To be completed at a total cost of Eur70 million, the facility will be one of the largest of its kind in the world, with a clear span of 350m and 70,000 sq m of floor area. It will have a simultaneous capacity of six widebodies up to A380 size, plus four narrowbodies.
Representing a joint investment of Eur100 million by the two partners, N3 Engine Overhaul Services at Arnstadt is already servicing Trent engines for Airbus long-haul aircraft and is due to be officially opened in September. One of the largest and most up-to-date engine maintenance facilities in Europe, it is devoted exclusively to the Rolls-Royce Trent 500, 700 and 900, lead powerplant on the A380.
The 23,000-square-metre facility has an annual capacity of up to 200 engines. Its test stand, located inside a 110m-long, 14mx14m noise-attenuation shell, can accept turbofans rated at up to 150,000lb thrust, giving it plenty of capacity for whatever the designers come up with over the next couple of decades. In the first full year of operation the initial complement of 300 employees will overhaul at least 40 units, a total that is expected to rise to more than 100 within two years.
In March this year Lufthansa Technik’s Spairliners joint venture with Air France announced that it had completed implementation of its IT infrastructure, which is based on the SAP industry standard for spares management. Its strengths include the ability to communicate with partner databases via modern Web Services technology, and a user-friendly Web portal for use by customers.
Operation
“Our processes are fully defined and implemented,” said Spairliners CEO Jean-Luc Fattelay. “We’re now ready to support the A380 in commercial operation.” Parent carriers Air France and Lufthansa won’t get their first aircraft until the spring and summer of 2009 respectively. But the company doesn’t plan to be idle in the meantime: though its raison d’etre is the combined 25-aircraft Air France/Lufthansa fleet, it will also be looking for business from other operators with a view to winning at least a third of the market.
The Lufthansa Technik investment in the A380 extended as far as elements of the design of the aircraft itself, as well as development of the maintenance schedule to be followed by the early operators.
Little wonder then that August Henningsen looked slightly rueful as he reported earlier this year on what had been done to limit the damage resulting from the A380 delivery delays. “We have postponed everything we can postpone, and we have come to the necessary agreements with our customers,” he said. “And the problems that caused the slippage appear to have been contained.”
But it was also evident that Lufthansa Technik’s enthusiasm for the world’s biggest airliner remains undiminished. “It will be in service for 50 years,” declared Henningsen. “A few months’ delay at the start of its life will count for little in the long term.”
Indeed, so keen is the company on the big bird that it is also bidding hard for the multi-million-dollar job of completing the first VIP A380 – an airframe is rumoured to have been already earmarked for a customer.
“As we speak, there’s a team from our Innovation Centre taking detailed measurements inside the cabin so we can design carefully targeted noise-reduction measures for the VIP version,” Henningsen told Flight Daily News aboard a route-proving flight to New York JFK earlier this year. “I’m confident we’ll win this work if an airframe becomes available at the right time,” he confided.
The company unveiled its first A380 ideas at the EBACE show in Geneva in 2005. The one-twentieth-scale model revealed a layout that included bedrooms and a conference room. Current concepts see the main, lower, deck given over to a forward lounge, meeting rooms, the main galley, a spacious royal lounge, a dining and conference area, and a rear section with first and business-class seating for the entourage.
Reserved
The upper deck is reserved for the principal and guests, with a private lounge, a galley and buffet, two guest rooms with bathrooms and showers, and the VVIP area with an office, bedroom and dressing area, bathroom and gym.
The company believes the total market for VIP A380s could run as high as five examples. Price tags are harder to estimate – the final bill depends very much on what the customer wants - but the VIPs will need very deep pockets. Apart from a list price of around $280 million for the basic airframe, they can expect to pay at least $30-35 million for the completion.
Source: Flight International
