On the immense site of the Tarmac Aerosave company, the planes spread out as far as the eye could see, displaying the logos of airlines around the world. At the foot of the Pyrenees, Boeing 747 of British Airways, Airbus A380 of Air France, A340 of Lufthansa or A350 of Air Caribbean have been waiting for more than three months for a milder sky for air traffic. When the company was created in 2007 in Azereix near Tarbes Lourdes Pyrénées airport (Hautes-Pyrénées), its specialty was the recycling of end-of-life aircraft.
Storage, transition and maintenance activities have been added over the years and the growth in air traffic. In thirteen years, Tarmac Aerosave has welcomed nearly a thousand aircraft, reliving more than 630 aircraft and dismantling 225 aircraft and 135 engines.
Less maintenance and dismantling
But with the coronavirus epidemic, Tarmac Aerosave has adapted the activity of its three sites in Tarbes, Toulouse-Francazal and Teruel, in Spain. “The total capacity of our sites has been increased by 25% to respond to requests from airlines since March, explains Patrick Lecer, president of Tarmac Aerosave who announced this week the opening of a fourth site at Paris-Vatry, in the Marne. The car parks had to be reorganized, some maintenance and recycling operations shifted. There are planes stored in active parking, less than three months, and others in long duration of one to two years. ” At the Tarbes site, nearly 150 aircraft are currently parked. At its four sites, the company can host up to 270 devices.
In June, 90% of Tarmac Aerosave's capacities will be reached, with the arrival of new aircraft. But the intense storage activity is not necessarily good news for the company, which has seen the maintenance operations and modifications requested during the buyout of a new customer drop. Usually, aeronautical technicians and engineers maintain and pamper the aircraft (Airbus, Boeing, ATR, Bombardier, Embraer).
Avoid their wear
Draining of engines, flight tests, covering of probes, portholes to prevent wear and tear, electrical and hydraulic tests, each room or square centimeter of the aircraft is examined… Five hangars, two of which can accommodate the giant A380 , allow these mandatory operations for airlines to be carried out.
"The coronavirus has slowed down but we are maintaining the devices in good condition, in particular by regularly starting the engines, because they must be able to take off quickly according to the resumption of traffic," details Patrick Lecer. Our profession has always needed adaptation, flexibility to cope with the vagaries of companies such as insolvency or bankruptcy problems but the epidemic demanded to respond even more urgently.
End clap (precipitate) for the A380
On the Tarmac Aerosave site, three A380s in the colors of Air France have been grounded since the end of March. Because the health crisis precipitated the fall of the giant of the Airbus, which had announced the end of its production at the end of 2021. The convoy transporting the last sections of the last apparatus arrived in the factories of Toulouse (Haute-Garonne) in the night from Wednesday to Thursday, after a long journey from Saint-Nazaire. An ultimate transport that sounds like a storm of honor and which hundreds of residents have attended.
The French company announced in May that it would not fly its nine A380s. They will be replaced by smaller, more efficient and less fuel-hungry aircraft, such as the A350 and the Boeing 787. As of 2019, Lufthansa had sold six of its fourteen A380s. As for British Airways, it has parked eleven of its twelve air giants on the tarmac of the former NATO base at Châteauroux (Indre). Ultimately, five super jumbos will be hosted in Tarbes and nine on the Teruel site. It is unknown at this time if the largest civilian aircraft will be boned or if another company will buy it. In 2019, the Tarbes company dismantled for the first time an A380, owned by the German company Dr Peters.
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Fifteen years after the first flight of this aircraft, however popular with passengers, the A380 did not convince the airlines. While the European aircraft manufacturer was targeting 1,300 aircraft sold in twenty years, only 251 copies have been ordered by fourteen customers since the launch of the program. With its 73 m long and 80 m wingspan, Airbus was betting on wide-body aircraft and the development of hubs at international airports. The airlines ultimately opted for medium-capacity long-haul jets, such as the Boeing A350 or Dreamliner, the B787. The last A380 will leave Toulouse's Airbus factories in 2021 to be delivered to the Emirates company.
