LONDON – It has been announced that in late 2022 the Guangzhou Aircraft Maintenance Engineering Co Ltd (GAMECO) completed the first Airbus A350 IL-Check for Lufthansa.
Lufthansa’s First A350 IL-Check
This latest announcement is a major milestone between the Lufthansa Group and GAMECO as it marks yet another aircraft type that GAMECO can perform scheduled base maintenance on Lufthansa’s aircraft, alongside already previously doing the same checks on the carriers Airbus A380 fleet.
This particular IL-Check on the Airbus A350 was carried out at GAMECO’s main base in Guangzhou, China, and was done on the aircraft registered as D-AIXA, Lufthansa’s first delivered Airbus A350-900 series aircraft.
D-AIXA, Lufthansa’s first Airbus A350-900, is just over six years old since being delivered new to Lufthansa from Airbus’ manufacturing facility in Toulouse, France to Lufthansa’s Munich base in December 2016 and is rightfully named Nürnberg, after the eastern German city.
According to data from RadarBox, D-AIXA flew to Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport (CAN) from Munich International Airport (MUC) on October 30 as flight LH9923 (DLH9923) departing Munich at 11:15 am and arriving in Guangzhou at 05:55 am.
The aircraft then sat in Guangzhou for its IL-Check until December 8, where the aircraft was then positioned at Osaka’s Kansai International Airport (KIX) in Japan as flight LH9924 (DLH9924) departing Guangzhou at 03:40 am and arriving into Kansai at 08:50 am.
The aircraft then sat in Kansai for 24 hours before departing back to Munich as LH9923 (DLH9923) at 10:10 am before landing back in Munich at 17:00 pm.
An IL-Check, known as Intermediate Layover or a 3C, covers an extensive check across the entire aircraft that includes light structural maintenance as well as checks for corrosion.
The IL or 3C can also be used to help the carrier identify opportunities to upgrade the aircraft’s cabin considering the entire interior is stripped out for corrosion checks.
Senior Comments
Commenting on their latest milestone with GAMECO, Lufthansa’s Vice President of Technical Fleet Management, Thomas Spriesterbach has said, “We as Lufthansa Airline are very happy to be back at GAMECO, having successfully completed the very first A350 IL-Check in our fleet.”
“We fully appreciate GAMECO’s efforts to maintain the most technologically advanced aircraft of our fleet for the upcoming years.”
GAMECO’s General Manager Dr. Marc Szepan, adds, “We are honored to be entrusted once again with performing maintenance work for Lufthansa.”
“The entire GAMECO team is thrilled to have the opportunity to support one of the world’s leading airlines.”
Overall
This is a great milestone for GAMECO and Lufthansa, especially with now having a much greater capability to perform more robust maintenance operations for the carrier.
It will be interesting to see over the coming years if Lufthansa and GAMECO venture down to obtaining more maintenance agreements for any more of their aircraft, namely the carrier’s new Boeing 787 Dreamliners as well as incoming Boeing 777Xs.
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