Lufthansa Technik plans to offer a comprehensive support portfolio for Boeing 787, the most modern and successful commercial aircraft

Boeing 787 is one of the most modern and successful commercial aircraft today. Lufthansa Technik will complement its support portfolio for the Boeing 787 by adding overhaul capabilities and the availability of exchange shipsets for this aircraft type’s landing gears.

This decision underlines Lufthansa Technik’s approach of offering an extremely comprehensive support portfolio for this modern commercial aircraft and continuously extending its services for it.

Preparations are under way to initially build up the capability either in Hamburg or at Lufthansa Technik Landing Gear Services UK. Customers in the Americas will benefit from expanding this capability also to Lufthansa Technik’s Los Angeles-based subsidiary Hawker Pacific Aerospace, the company says.

To help with exchanging and repairing landing gears on site, Lufthansa Technik will rely on the mobile Airline Support Team (AST) Landing Gear service. A new solution to transport the landing gears has also been developed. Lufthansa Technik has designed dedicated transport crates, which will be available to save transportation costs.

As landing gear technology is also advancing, Lufthansa Technik is expanding its technical expertise and creating the required shop capacity.

Meanwhile, Lufthansa Technik recently performed the first major connectivity modifications on Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft of an undisclosed customer. The aircraft were modified at Lufthansa Technik Budapest in Hungary.

The airline customer is currently enlarging its all-Boeing 737 fleet with the newest member of this aircraft family and was looking for a partner to equip the fleet with a state-of-the-art connectivity solution.

Lufthansa Technik Budapest was the location of choice to accomplish the layovers within a short and reliable time frame. Over the recent years, the narrowbody base maintenance and modification experts in Budapest have performed this modification many times on Boeing 737 NG aircraft.

During the five-day layovers, several specialised teams were in place to accomplish the modification work. A structures team reinforced the affected skin area to facilitate the installation of the Satellite Antenna Assembly (SAA) and GSM antenna as well as the covering radome. The avionics team installed the cabling, hardware and software of the related connectivity system in the aircraft cabin. Other mechanics provided the necessary access to the cockpit and passenger compartment interior and reinstall all equipment once all work had been finished.

Dietmar Focke, CEO of Lufthansa Technik Budapest, says: “The recent events demonstrate our competence for modification work on the Boeing 737 MAX 8. But this is only the first step. We are currently expanding our services to full base maintenance capabilities for this aircraft type to support operators from scheduled maintenance to aircraft modification all the way to major overhaul events.”

Maintenance capability extensions for the 737 MAX at further locations in the Lufthansa Technik network are planned, the company says.

Lufthansa Technik already offers an extensive range of globally available products and services for the various Boeing 737 types. The spare parts warehouses for the Boeing 737 of the Classic and popular Next Generation versions have been expanded for the 737 MAX to support operators of this aircraft type with component services. And as one of the first MRO providers to support customers as early as in the initial phase of their LEAP engine operations, preparations for the introduction of the LEAP-1B engine are underway with the first shop visit expected in 2019.