Iberia, CZFB to Build Maintenance Hangar at Barcelona Airport

Iberia and the Consorcio de la Zona Franca de Barcelona (CZFB), a development promotion body which manages the city’s large duty-free industrial estate, will jointly build a maintenance hangar at Barcelona’s El Prat airport. The new facility will be the first in Catalonia to accommodate medium-range and long-haul airliners with more than 100 seats.

Iberia’s chairman, Fernando Conte, and the central government’s delegate in CZFB, Manuel Royes, signed the agreement to constitute the company that will implement the project, in which Iberia holds a 75 percent stake and the CZFB holds 25 percent.

The new building will raise the status of the Barcelona Airport by endowing it with the capacity to maintain aircraft belonging to Iberia, its associated airlines, and outside clients.

The project calls for an investment of 24 million euros. The hangar, of avant-garde design, will be energy efficient and built to make the most of local natural resources.

With an area of 12,600 square meters, the hangar will accommodate large, wide-bodied aircraft such as the Airbus 340 or the Boeing 747 “Jumbo”, and also smaller planes like those of the Airbus A319/A320/A321 family, the Boeing 757/767 and 737, etc.

The facility will be equipped to carry out “A” inspections of systems, components and structures, normally scheduled for every 600 hours of flying time, and “C” inspections, usually made every 20 months.

The new facility will create 200 direct jobs, of which 150 will be for maintenance technicians and the rest will be for management and administrative personnel.

According to the carrier, the installation will feature the use of the most advanced technologies to ensure maximum energy efficiency and friendliness to the environment, including the use of renewable energies and optimum waste recycling.