Qantas has unveiled its new engineering facility, which is situated at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and represents an investment of more than US$30 million (AU$22.68 million).
At 5.7 hectares it is the first commercial hangar specifically designed to accommodate the Airbus A380 and one of the largest such facilities in North America.
It will be used to carry out maintenance checks on Qantas' A380 and Boeing 747 planes during ground time in Los Angeles. In addition to this, the centre will also offer extra capacity to support the carrier's new B787-9 Dreamliner when it enters service later this year.
More than 50 per cent more space is available compared to the previous LAX hangar held by Qantas, which was used to maintain the same varieties of aircraft. It can accommodate work being carried out on up to four aircraft simultaneously - an advantage over its predecessor that is expected to cut the time spend on undertaking maintenance tasks by an estimated 20 per cent.
Qantas has been able to consolidate its footprint in Los Angeles as a result of the new building, moving 40 corporate employees into new offices located within the hangar, joining the team of local engineers.
Alan Joyce, chief executive officer of the Qantas Group, said that the opening gives his organisation a world-class maintenance facility in one of its busiest offshore hubs.
"We can have up to four aircraft on the ground at LAX at once and some are here for around 14 hours, so it makes sense to have a facility where we can make good use of that time by doing scheduled maintenance," he commented.
"Ultimately, this helps us increase the amount of time our aircraft can spend serving our customers."
