Think-Dash: A tour of Ameco Beijing's facility

A tour of Ameco Beijing's facility:

I spent a few days in Beijing
last week for IATA's annual general meeting.
Together with colleagues from the Singapore
and UK
office, we produced three Airline Business dailies with coverage of the AGM as
well as exclusive interviews with various airline chiefs.
I also took the chance to arrange for a visit to Ameco
Beijing's facility at Beijing
Capital International
Airport. The MRO is a
60-40 joint venture between Air China
and Lufthansa.

The drive to and from the facility was long and tedious
thanks to the monstrous jams on Beijing
highways. I hear the city has some 5 million cars.

There, besides having a short meeting with Ameco
Beijing's media team, I was also brought on a tour of the sprawling facility.
It's almost like an Ameco town, complete with hostels and canteens for students
studying at its aviation college.

Its facility includes four hangars that can handle 15 widebodies
and 11 narrowbodies. The latest is a Boeing 747 hangar for heavy maintenance
and painting. There is also a hangar that can take the A380, a four-bay
maintenance hangar and a painting hangar.

It even has its own engine, component and gear workshop -
which looked much like an IKEA store. I wasn't able to visit the A380
hangar because it was a 15-minute car ride from the main compound and I'll also
need to get further security clearance from the airport.
What I did see however, was the four bay hangar where an Air
China Boeing 777, a United Airways 747 and a Grandstar Cargo 747 were
undergoing maintenance. (sadly though i was only allowed to picture Air China's plane)