Am warm and dry climate are essential when aircraft have to be stored for longer periods. In Switzerland, those conditions are not met for long periods of time. Because Swiss still believes that it will not need some of its planes for a long time, it is now sending them to Jordan.
On Sunday (3 May), five Airbus A320s and two Airbus A330s made their way from Zurich to Amman, a spokeswoman confirms to aeroTELEGRAPH. The Lufthansa subsidiary's planes aren't rarely seen there. It has a contract with Jordanian maintenance company Joramco.
Unused for more than three months
Swiss therefore also uses the time to carry out maintenance work that is due anyway. But the actual purpose is to store the jets. It «is particularly recommended in situations where the aircraft will not be needed for operational use for more than three months,» says the spokeswoman.
So-called storage is different from simply parking the aircraft. At regular intervals, individual system tests are carried out on the planes and their status is checked. «However, this work is less time-consuming than the functional tests that are carried out during the parking phase, which aircrafts are currently in in Zurich, Geneva and Dübendorf,» the Swiss spokeswoman said. It takes at least four days for an aircraft to be ready for use again after long-term storage. Depending on the duration, this time is extended.
Lufthansa has also sent some jets down south, but to Spain. Meanwhile, numerous airlines park their unused jets in Teruel, Lufthansa's Airbus A340-600s, among others, and the German airline's A380s have also already arrived there.
In Teruel and the French sister location Tarbes, which is also owned by Tarmac Aerosave, space is slowly becoming scarce.
