Coronavirus: thousands of planes parked in the desert, that's where they're hibernating
It is no coincidence that 2020 has been dubbed "Year Zero for airlines." Coronavirus has hit hard [...]
It is no coincidence, if 2020 has been renamed "the year zero of the airlines". The Coronavirus has hit every carrier hard, sparing no one: hundreds and hundreds of planes that, instead of plying the skies, lie as if in hibernation. Ready to fill up again, eager to do so. Suspended in a limbo filled with questions, speculation and conjecture.
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At first, airlines reduced flights by cutting connections to the most affected countries. Later, when the virus became pandemic and the world plunged into a destabilizing lockdown, they grounded (almost) all their planes. Redundancies and social shock absorbers reshaped the lives of thousands and thousands of stewardesses, stewards, airport workers, and those who make their living from tourism. In the hardest months, 90% of the flights were cancelled. The Boeing 747 experienced an early retirement. And, even now that tourism has partially restarted, there is a lot of uncertainty. So much. Not least because, as CNN wrote, "The system is not designed to accommodate such a large number of planes anywhere but the sky."
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Planes grounded for Covid: the situation at airports
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Where were parked planes in this stand-by world? The most obvious answer, in airport, is not the fairest. Or rather, it is not always. There are too many planes for all of them to stay, indefinitely, at the airport. Not to mention how this is a solution wasteful, because of the costs charged by the major hubs. Also because an aircraft is certainly not a car, which you park in the garage and forget about until you come back to need to use it: an aircraft must be kept "in shape" so that it is equally reliable and performs well. Fluids must be drained, engines and exhausts must be protected, external instrumentation defended, tires and windows must be covered. And their safety must be protected. Taking care of all these maintenance tasks are often external companies, who prefer to work simultaneously on the same aircraft model.
So here are the richest companies (if they can find space) leaving their planes in the major airports. Others are content with "secondary" and isolated stopovers (from which it will be more difficult to depart one day), or at those airports that have adapted to parking the slopes of takeoff and landing (such as Copenhagen Airport). What about all the other planes? They ended up in alternative, surreal places. In the "graveyards for aircraft" as they are called. Even if, in those parking lots, they don't go to stay there.
From Arizona to Australia, aircraft parking lots.
Among the most popular aircraft parking lots in Arizona is the Pinal County Airpark.
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It is located not far from the Catalina Foothills, and it was not always a parking lot: in the 1940s, military pilots were trained here. Depending on the size of the plane and the extras desired, the company pays a certain fee: you can choose parking only or require various maintenance work so that-a tomorrow-the plane can be put back in the air in a minimum amount of time. What makes Pinal County Airpark the ideal place to park an aircraft, however, is primarily the arid climate, which helps delay corrosion. And then the strategic location, close to many remarkably busy airports.
Still staying in America, but this time in New Mexico, the Roswell International Air Center is planning to expand its grounds to accommodate up to 800 aircraft. The cost of parking? $7 to $14 per day, depending on how heavy the aircraft are.
In Australia, in Alice Springs, theAsia Pacific Aircraft Storage (APAS) has been in existence for a decade now. And it is mostly chosen by Asian airlines, which certainly cannot leave their planes for long under the continent's high humidity. Here carriers can purchase "packages" of 3-6 months, or even longer. To preserve their planes while they wait to be operational again.
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And in Europe? The preferred destination is Teruel, 35,000 inhabitants in the heart of Aragon. A city that, although a UNESCO World Heritage Site, tourists rarely visit. It is here that the Tarmac Aerosave owns an aircraft parking lot, with an efficient maintenance service and-among its customers-first-rate names such as Lufthansa, Air France, and British Airways. The same company also operates the internal parking lot at theTarbes-Lourdes-Pyrenees Airport, in the south of France.
And those who think they are in the desert certain places are very wrong, recently British Airways has retired its remaining fleet of 747s in the Scottish highlands at St Athan Airport.
But there are also those who have chosen the Dübendorf military airfield (Swiss Air), or the Jordan (many Airbuses are parked in Amman). Strategic solutions, but they contain within them shades of melancholy. The giants of the skies are designed, precisely, to be in the skies. And those immense parking lots, part cemetery part museum, collect memories. In the hope that, soon, they will return to being home for only a few, very few aircraft.