British Airways Heathrow Hanger

Pre-pandemic, Heathrow was the sixth busiest international airport, with annual passenger numbers peaking in 2019 at 80,884. Like many infrastructure hubs, Heathrow has undergone multiple expansions and developments to retain its position as the UK’s largest international airport.

Although Heathrow is principally known for passenger transit, it also provides maintenance facilities for a wide range of commercial passenger aircraft, one of the largest being the Airbus A380. This supersized aircraft, along with others, is being maintained in Heathrow’s Grade 2 listed Technical Block A (TBA), operated by British Airways Engineering, in a hangar originally designed for smaller aircraft.

Along with other developments at Heathrow, ARUP, a multinational professional services firm, were given the task of re-designing the hangar, which included the installation of new recirculation AHUs to filter the air and maintain the temperature within Technical Block A.

AirCraft Air Handling worked closely with the installation contractor on the specification, design and subsequent manufacture of eight identical 600kW indirect gas fired recirculation AHUs, that included extraction units which would filter and heat the air.

As with all of the units we manufacture, we comprehensively test the fully assembled AHUs at our premises and subsequently prepare them for site delivery. AirCraft Air Handling engineers also undertook on-site testing and commissioning.