Last Thursday I visited the Lufthansa Technik hangars in Shannon with my uncle, cousin and brother. After a two hour drive we arrived at Shannon Airport. The airline, Lufthansa, owns hangars at various airports all over the world, such as Shannon. The hangars are used either to service their planes or to service planes from other airlines.
We started the tour in the first hanger which had two large planes both belonging to european airlines, one was an Airbus and the other one Boeing. I was amazed at how much work actually goes into servicing planes and how many people are needed. Some planes that get serviced need up to 80 staff and it can take up to three months to get the job done.
After the first hanger we went to the second hangar which was larger than the first one and had more space so it could fit an extra plane. However unlike the other building which contained only european planes, this hanger's largest plane was an American Boeing which regularly flew over the Atlantic. We were given a tour of the whole plane and what really amazed me was the amount of the buttons in the cockpit.
It was about two o’clock when we finished lunch and then we started visiting the third and final hanger. This hangar was the smallest of all the buildings we had visited but it still only had three planes. An Aer Lingus plane was being serviced and two other aircrafts had just come in for servicing, one being from Hungary. We all went on board the Hungarian plane and were told what sort of service it needed.
As soon as we had finished our tour of the hangars, it was back on the road for our lengthy two hour return drive to Dublin. It was a really interesting day in which I learned a lot about planes and their different parts. This day has given me an insight into the workings of plane and I certainly will look at them differently on my next flight.