Originally Posted by
Skipness One Foxtrot
So is the massive loss of hangar capacity a function of modern aircraft needing much less engineering support? Or is a lot more A320 maintenance now with Iberia?
Yes, BA lost a lot of engineering hangar space at Heathrow but some of it was moved elsewhere in the UK. For example all the Long haul fleets inter/major checks [on Boeing 747/767/777 and 787] ended up at BAMC in Cardiff, while the short haul major line went to BAMG at Glasgow airport. Incidentally, the Glasgow shorthaul line has one of the top industry downtime records with check times often better than industry standard.
Virtually none of the A320s go over for IB to do. One exception recently was when BA introduced new seats and removed one of the rear toilets, the wanted the new seating configuration introduced across the fleet in a very short time and Glasgow just didn't have enough spare capacity on top of all the normal checks to do all those, so a number went out to Spain for the new seating. Glasgow could easily expand but are constrained by the lack of extra hangar space, so new ones would need to be built and I would suspect at the moment building hangars is not high on BA priorities.
The fact that many of the major overhaul lines went elsewhere meant BA could lose hangar capacity at LHR as an aircraft on a major check ties up a bay for a long period while the majority of the work carried out at LHR now is only the type that ties-up a bay for a day or two.