Talking to LTB CEO Thoralf Wagner and some of his senior aircraft technicians in the days before the flight, there was a palpable excitement that this chapter was about to close. “This was the largest order in our history,” Wagner says with evident pride. The team also showed a certain affection toward their longest-standing guest.
To be clear, the time lag between arrival and departure had nothing to do with LTB. All the aircraft parked at Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport during the pandemic stayed a minimum of two years until passenger flights returned to the air.
The aircraft owner (in this case, Lufthansa Airlines, part of the same group as LTB, though the two companies are separate) had to decide which aircraft it wanted operational when. That then had to be slotted in with the ongoing maintenance, repairs and operations schedule at Budapest.
Finally, aircraft of varying ages will require different levels of maintenance. This particular plane was, in fact, the second to arrive. It is now 31 years old, although walking around it out on the apron, you wouldn’t know it. Before it could be allowed to leave, however, the inevitable paperwork had to be put in order.
“That was followed by a so-called maintenance check flight, a three-hour flight over Hungary, where everything is checked in detail, and that was the first time it had been in the air in four-and-a-half years,” says Wagner.
Back in Budapest, the aircraft was rechecked on the ground, and any minor issues reported were fixed, a process that generally takes one or two days. And then, finally, it was cleared to fly off into the sunset.
Perhaps, at this stage, it is worth rewinding to 2020. When it became clear that passenger flights would fall victim to travel bans and lockdowns, airlines scrambled to find suitable places to store their aircraft. It made sense to have the planes near facilities that could also look after them; that’s where LTB came into the picture.
“Lufthansa wanted to bring 44 aircraft to Hungary, and Budapest Airport was also urgently looking for new revenue streams because, although there was a ramp-up in cargo traffic at that time, passenger traffic was totally down. They were super happy to cooperate,” Wagner explains. Budapest Airport took 41 of the Lufthansa aircraft, with three others sent to Debrecen.
“We also accepted around 20 aircraft from other airlines and leasing companies. So overall, we served, at that time, 60 to 70 aircraft. And it was already a big challenge simply when they were coming in, aircraft after aircraft,” Wagner says.
He’s not kidding. You don’t just taxi the plane to its spot and switch off the ignition. An aircraft can be “temporarily parked” for three months. Any longer than that and it becomes much more complex, as several tasks need to be performed to help conserve the aircraft (all liquids must be drained, for example). Routine checks continue during the parking period.
It was two years before passenger travel returned. By then, nearly all the aircraft had hit the timeframe when a more significant overhaul was necessary, requiring one or two months in the hangar.
LTB currently has two hangars at the airport: the first can take two aircraft simultaneously, and the other, which has an awning extension, can fit three. In the mid-term, the company sees additional demand for aircraft repair bays. To that end, it is discussing possible options with Budapest Airport, which Wagner appreciates as “a good, professional partner for our business.”
That’s for the future; a more immediate issue has been finding staff. Wagner says while it is still a challenge, labor force issues have eased somewhat. Staff fluctuation has come right down, helped by “realistic” salary adjustments and much greater flexibility around benefit packages. Secondly, the career structure, even for an aircraft technician with no particular management aspirations, is transparent and predictable across the five years it takes to become fully qualified.
“The third pillar is our own training school, which is super paying off now. We take the guys directly from school, and they are given a trainee technician’s contract, which also provides them immediately with nice flight benefits within the Lufthansa Group,” Wagner says. It isn’t all 18-year-old school leavers, however.
“We have people like car mechanics who might be 35 but join our training school because they understand the career path is so valuable and want to retrain as an aircraft technician. And normally, these people stay with us a long time.”
What lies in the future? You won’t be surprised to read that digitization is in the air. But that, as they say, is a story for another time.
To get an aircraft that has been parked for a longer period back in the air, so-called return-to-service checks, are required.
“This means that you make the aircraft ready so that it can at least fly on to an overhaul facility. We flew some of them to our sister facility in Sofia,” says Thoralf Wagner, CEO of Lufthansa Technik Budapest.
Thus, of Lufthansa’s original 44 aircraft kept on standby in Hungary during the pandemic, 25 were given major overhaul checks and put directly back into what is known as revenue service from Budapest. Another 16 were given RTS checks and sent on to other locations. But that still leaves three unaccounted for.
These, the airline decided, were not worth putting back into service. Two underwent “tear down,” allowing a total of 6,000 parts to be salvaged and overhauled for reuse as spares before a specialist company cut up the airframes.
“It’s sad to see but also impressive, I have to say,” Wagner admits. “But one of the three aircraft survived.” Stripped of its engines and airline livery, Budapest Airport now uses that third plane for training its fire crews. Wagner says it is another example of the good cooperation between the airport operator and Lufthansa Technik Budapest.
“This aircraft you can see behind the tower. So, out of these 44 aircraft, one is still here with us in Hungary and will probably stay for at least the next 10 years. It has a blue tail, so next time you are flying, watch out for it. We have a remarkable monument to remember that time when we weren’t flying!”
This article was first published in the Budapest Business Journal print issue of April 22, 2025.
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