In late November I had the opportunity to visit AUSTRIAN Technik and take a behind-the-scenes look of their facility in Vienna. I was expecting a high level tour highlighting a few key pieces of the operation, but what took place was quite the opposite. The head of the facility was kind of enough to spend over 2 hours personally escorting me throughout the hangars showing me every aspect of their operation.
As part of the tour I had the ability to board an A320 during a comprehensive C-Check (Interior cabin and panels removed for thorough inspection), tour the various departments (Metal Fabricating, Upholstery, Paint, Tires/Brakes, Engine, Graphic Design and the main Engineering offices) and had free reign to poke, prod or handle anything that I came across. I’ll cover these parts of the tour in upcoming posts since there is simply too much to cover in a single writing. This was truly a fantastic experience for this recovering Avgeek!
As my luck would have it during my visit, one of OS’ Boeing 777s was being brought into the hangar to have its Air Conditioning System serviced before its flight later that day. So obviously we took time out of the tour to watch this take place. It’s not everyday that an airline arranges this kind of an event for a visitor 😉 !
The timing was perfect and I had the ability to climb up a 4 story A320 scaffolding to capture the 777 being towed into position:
As usual for these kind of posts, I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story:
Looking down from the A320 Scaffold
The A320 Scaffold is approximately 5 stories tall
Not a bad vantage point!
A quick look at AUSTRIAN’s new Business Class Cabin
The 777’s Flight Deck
