Keeping the world in motion

Just a stone’s throw away from Hamburg airport is a city within the city – the head office of Lufthansa Technik AG, a 750,000 square metre site that employs several thousand people. Attentive HYDRAULIKPRESSE readers will recall that we paid a visit to the drive maintenance department here eight years ago. Today, we are turning our attention to an area of component maintenance services, which, like many Lufthansa Technik divisions, has sites all over Germany and the world. The pneumatic workshops in Hamburg test, recondition and repair pneumatically operated components. In this regard, the HANSA‑FLEX branch in Hamburg-Stellingen supplies a large number of products, including several that are incorporated into the test benches.

Whether cockpit instruments, drives or pneumatic devices, one thing is clear: there is no such thing as an unimportant component in an airplane. The regular inspection, maintenance and repair of all airplane components is therefore of critical importance for ensuring the technical safety and reliability of the aircraft. As a world leading and manufacturer-independent provider of maintenance, repair and reconditioning services for the civil aviation sector, Lufthansa Technik AG offers its customers a complete package of aviation services. This includes the quick and global provision of spare parts. After all, airplane maintenance can only be reliably conducted ready for it to take off on schedule if damaged components are replaced on site. Every hour for which an airplane is grounded costs the airline serious money. To ensure a smooth supply of spare parts, Lufthansa Technik AG therefore uses a sophisticated logistics system, operating workshops all around the world in which some 300,000 components are reconditioned and repaired every year.

The technology used to conduct fault analyses on damaged components is also highly sophisticated. After all, before a part can be repaired or reconditioned, the cause of the failure must be precisely determined. This also applies to pneumatic components, such as air cycle machines, which play a central role in the complicated circuits in air-conditioning systems, or drain and safety valves, which regulate the cabin pressure. The engineers in the pneumatics department at the Lufthansa Technik AG site in Hamburg use six main and several smaller test benches for fault diagnosis. “There are no standard solutions for the things that we test here. The main test benches were therefore built in house by our own specialists,” explained the engineer Markus R. And these self-designed test benches are certainly highly versatile. Markus R. emphasised that “the components on each test bench are tested in several areas. Our market competitors have to use several test cells to achieve the same as we can with just one test bench”. This multifunctionality saves not only space but also time and therefore money – a situation from which customers also ultimately benefit.

Despite the above, the custom designs and broad range of standards that apply to pneumatic component connections pose continual challenges for HANSA‑FLEX. “It is not only standard threaded connectors that are used but also 60°, 37°, 24° and military-standard threaded connectors. And all of these are sometimes measured metrically, sometimes in inches – meaning our complete services relate to a huge range of products,” commented HANSA‑FLEX sales representative Christian Henningsen. As a result, the staff in Hamburg work in close cooperation with the special fittings plant in Dresden-Weixdorf, which produces the military-standard threaded connectors among other components. HANSA‑FLEX also supplies metal and PTFE hoses produced in Boffzen, as well as industrial hoses, sealing technology and hydraulic components and provides associated services from its industrial and rapid hydraulic service teams. “We try to keep the number of different suppliers as low as possible. With its broad range of products and services, HANSA‑FLEX has long since been among the suppliers we work with,” Markus R. revealed

This full range makes HANSA‑FLEX a top point of call for all connection technology matters. “Our products are available on Lufthansa Technik’s electronic marketplace and can be ordered via this. We also have a framework agreement for all of the customer’s sites. Lufthansa Technik has its own e-mail account with us for enquiries and orders. And as many of the activities can only be resolved through direct contact, I visit the customer at least once a week,” stated Christian Henningsen, describing several cornerstones of the almost 20-year-old partnership.

As we get back into the car at the end of our visit, we are glad that Christian Henningsen is with us; without him, we would certainly have got lost trying to find the exit. After all, the Lufthansa Technik AG site in Hamburg is a city within the city, with lots more to see and report on. Perhaps we will be able to return again in another eight years.