Has anyone heard anymore on future uses of the Thomas Cook hangar. I saw it mentioned that there had been a report on another forum of Virgin being interested? I’d personally be surprised as it’s such a large facility, when they have already got Heathrow and Gatwick. I’d say it was at least as big as the combined area of their existing engineering hangars.
However in a way I can see how it could prove an attractive site for A330 maintenance with so many qualified Thomas Cook Engineering staff on the market. Obviously a significant proportion of their A330 fleet uses Trent 700 engines that Thomas Cook staff would know inside out. With the A350 and A330 neo coming on line to replace the 747, it would be relatively inexpensive to train up former Thomas Cook engineering staff on these fleets.
In hindsight the TCX hangar would seem to be a better fit for the Jet2 operation than the ex Monarch hangar. However I can’t imagine after investing in converting the hangar for their operations it would be that feasible for them to switch over. The ex Monarch hangar or Air Livery hangar (I believe this is now to be used for storage) would seem more of a right size fit for an expansion of Virgin‘s engineering operations into MAN.
However in a way I can see how it could prove an attractive site for A330 maintenance with so many qualified Thomas Cook Engineering staff on the market. Obviously a significant proportion of their A330 fleet uses Trent 700 engines that Thomas Cook staff would know inside out. With the A350 and A330 neo coming on line to replace the 747, it would be relatively inexpensive to train up former Thomas Cook engineering staff on these fleets.
In hindsight the TCX hangar would seem to be a better fit for the Jet2 operation than the ex Monarch hangar. However I can’t imagine after investing in converting the hangar for their operations it would be that feasible for them to switch over. The ex Monarch hangar or Air Livery hangar (I believe this is now to be used for storage) would seem more of a right size fit for an expansion of Virgin‘s engineering operations into MAN.