MANILA, Philippines — Lufthansa Technik Philippines (LTP) is pushing through with its $40-million hangar expansion in Pasay amid cash challenges due to the COVID-19’s impact on the aviation sector.
LTP has previously suspended the construction of the hangar expansion to preserve cash in order to maintain its existing workforce.
The expansion, which will enable LTP to service more and bigger aircraft, started construction in September last year and was originally scheduled for completion in October.
With the project on hold, its completion has been moved to the middle of next year depending “if things go well.”
Eunice Gan, LTP corporate communications manager, told The STAR the company is not making further adjustments to the project’s schedule despite what appears to be a slow recovery in air travel.
She said the company remains committed to finish the expansion by the middle of 2021.
“Primary structural components such as pillars and other materials were ordered prior to the pandemic. These materials were delivered in the recent months and for practical reasons we are pursuing construction of the hangar to complete the shell,” Gan said.
“We can quickly complete the hangar when things start picking up, which we hope will be by the middle of next year,” she said.
Gan said LTP’s workload has been significantly reduced due to less work requirement from customers.
LTP’s business depends on airplane mileage, but with majority of them grounded due to travel restrictions and low demand as a result of the pandemic, airplanes are not incurring mileage so they will not need maintenance.
LTP is a joint venture of Hamburg-based Lufthansa Technik AG and Lucio Tan’s aviation support service provider MacroAsia Corp.
Gan earlier said the construction of the new hangar called Hangar 1A was urgent prior to the pandemic because of the boom of the travel industry and that a lot of planes needed to be maintained.