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Earlier
this week, Virgin Atlantic opened its new hangar at Gatwick Airport. The
Hangar, which has undergone refurbishment by the BAA, was leased to Virgin
Atlantic in mid June. Prior to becoming operational the hangar needed to be
fitted out with Virgin’s own equipment in order for maintenance and the
support functions to be carried out on the Virgin Atlantic fleet of Boeing
747-400 aircraft based at Gatwick Airport and the Virgin Nigeria Airbus A340-300.
With the increasing number of flights operated by Virgin Atlantic from
Gatwick, the hangar will accommodate all the Gatwick based fleet’s ‘A
check’ maintenance requirements. The facility is 75 metres long and 68
metres wide and is located at the north west side of the airport. The hangar was
opened in 1988 and first occupied by Dan Air. The hangar space, which could fit seven double-decker buses along its length and
approximately 2.2 billion ping pong balls, will have a 44 strong maintenance
staff.
Jeff Livings, Director of Engineering
commented, "The Hangar will be a great asset to Virgin Atlantic for its Gatwick
based fleet; it will mean that we will be able to carry out A checks,
ad hoc and casualty work and hangar dependent tasks at Gatwick instead of repositioning aircraft to the Virgin
Atlantic Heathrow hangar. We also will be able to offer the expertise of the Virgin
Atlantic maintenance team to other airlines requiring hangar facilities at
Gatwick."
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