Lufthansa Technik Puerto Rico re-starts operations

Three weeks after Hurricane Maria had heavily devastated the island of Puerto Rico, Lufthansa Technik Puerto Rico (LTPR) redelivered their one hundredth heavy maintenance check for Spirit airlines, the launch customer for the facility. “Thankfully all of our employees have been accounted for and while many have suffered from the consequences of hurricane Maria, all of them are safe and well”, said Pat Foley, CEO of LTPR. “This was the most important news for us. In addition, our hangar infrastructure while having some damage, it was not damaged heavily. However as with the rest of the island we suffered from tremendous problems with electricity, water supply, IT and general communications.” After the hurricane left Puerto Rico the first focus for the LTPR management team was to contact its employees, their families and customers which lasted several days due to the destroyed infrastructure on the island. In parallel they started to organize emergency support with Lufthansa Technik colleagues in the US and Europe. A special situation management team was established in the Lufthansa Technik Headquarters in Hamburg / Germany and some specialist support was sent to Puerto Rico with one of the first flights after the re-opening of Puerto Rico’s airports. They were accompanied by IT-, other technical and logistics experts and urgently needed technical equipment such as satellite communication systems. With the support of local and US-authorities, a variety of help organizations and especially the transport capacities of Spirit, Jet Blue and a Lufthansa Cargo aircraft, Lufthansa Technik was able to organize relief flights to Aguadilla airport within the first few days.