New Croatia Airlines hangerat Zagreb Airport

Croatia Airlines continues to maintain its position as the leading airline out of all in the EX-YU republics. Not only has it seen an increase in passengers, destination serviced and fleet, its management also yesterday opened the airline’s very own hanger at Zagreb Airport (pictured above) which will give both the airline and the airport bigger opportunity to maintain aircraft. The hanger will be operated by Croatia Airlines and its partner Lufthansa (Lufthansa Technik). It has been agreed that Lufthansa will also service some of its Airbus A319 and A320 fleet at Zagreb’s Pleso. The close cooperation between Croatia Airlines and Lufthansa Technik started as early as 1992. Today Lufthansa Technik provides the airline with Total Engine Support TES and Total Component Support TCS, as well as services covering Airframe Related Components (ARC) and landing gears. Lufthansa Technik had taken over the component support for the Bombardier Q400 fleet of the Croatian airline only recently. Croatia Airlines on the other hand has already performed C-checks for Lufthansa Technik for a while. During a C-check the entire aircraft is subjected to comprehensive checks, among them very detailed functional and structural tests. Airbus A320 family aircraft are due for C-checks after about 18 months. Each aircraft requires somewhere between 1,500 and 2,800 man hours. In Europe Lufthansa Technik has currently performed C-checks mainly at its German locations as well as at Lufthansa Technik Malta. The new cooperation with Croatia Airlines is another step to expand the global maintenance network of the company.

However the new hanger has strong competition from its neighbours – from Jat Tehnika in Belgrade servicing around 10 airlines and Adria’s CRJ hangers in Ljubljana which service CRJ aircraft for many airlines from the EU.

NOTE: Tomorrow we will publish the winter 2008/09 Croatia Airlines timetable and all the changes taking place.