b'HANGARSDEN 59from Ghafari Associates to address the facilitys inherent needThe flagship facility at IAH is a two-bay, six-aircraft hangar, to accommodate larger, more complex aircraft. We expect thiswhich is twice the size of the airlines maintenance facilities at hangar to be in operation for the next 50 years, says Fretwell. ItDEN. The team at DEN used the project at IAH as a template. In was designed and built for airplanes that dont even exist today. particular, Swinerton studied the high-tech aircraft service pits For starters, the supersized facility required a supersizedwithin the hangar floor. At two stations per aircraft, each of the six door. Technically five doors in one, the Megadoor stretches theprefabricated fiberglass units includes the equipment and tools length of the building with a tail pocket in the middle. The fivetechnicians need to power and maintain an airplane parked above. fabric doors can fold up in sections, either individually, in groups,The pits are recessed roughly 12 feet into the hangar floor, which or all together. Above, the hangars central overhead structuralslopes % for drainage; and the lips around the pits must be member is a box truss that stretches the full 270 feet of thedead-to-nuts even when contractors pour the concrete. hangar and weighs 180,000 pounds. The truss was so large, it required special pre-installation planning by the building teamPandemic Twistsfrom Swinerton Construction Company. Due to FAA regulationsConstruction at DEN was originally planned to begin in July 2019 limiting crane heights next to taxiways, Swinerton led an extensiveand last 17 to 19 months. Eight months into construction, however, search to find the right combination of low boom height and highCOVID changed everything. In addition to requiring daily temperature strength. In a single day, a 500-ton Hydra crane and a 300-tonchecks, hand washing stations, social distancing and heightened conventional crane swung the truss into place and held it theresanitization practices, the global pandemic prompted Southwest until workers secured it with bolts and welds. Due to the extremeto slow construction of its hangar project. As passenger demand length and loading, Swinerton used 3-D laser scans of the trussplummeted to historic lows, the airline was forced to shift budgets to on the ground, after it was in place, and after it was roof-loaded tosupport its overall operationsincluding slowing or pausing capital validate that the camber remained within tolerance. expenditures. As a result, Swinerton needed to quickly adjust to the budget changes and completely re-sequence the subcontractor Like other facilities at DEN, Southwests new maintenanceschedules.hangar was developed with the environment in mind. As construction was getting underway, builders took note of the airports waste concrete storage yard just across a fence from the jobsite. Working with Southwest and DEN, Swinerton brought in a crusher and recycled the existing concrete to use as subgrade fill. This saved a tremendous amount of time and money that wouldEXPERIENCED | TIME-TESTEDhave been spent acquiring, hauling and handling such material. It also significantly reduced the buildings embodied carbon count. Nationwide NetworkFuture-proofing facilities has been a frequent topic of conversation for the seven years Fretwell has been with the airline. Its part of the Southwest way, he adds. FULLY INTEGRATED HANGAR & DOOR SYSTEMSThe DEN hangar was designed so that an entire wall is ready to remove and expand whenever that time comes, says Fretwell. Although it is the newest hangar Southwest has brought online, its not the only one. Fretwell and his team focus on a nationwide facilities masterplan every day. The hangar at DEN comes on the heels of a larger hangar at Houston Intercontinental (IAH) that opened in January 2020 and serves as the overall hangar template. Southwest has already hired a contractor to build a near duplicate of the DEN hangar at Baltimore/Washington International ThurgoodHANGARMarshall Airport (BWI). The airline is currently working on a project to expand its existing hangar at Phoenix Sky Harbor International&DOORAirport (PHX), and is looking to potentially add similar facilities at1957other airports where the airline has large operations. EXPERTS 2023Prior to Houston, Southwest hadnt built a hangar in 20 years, Fretwell reflects. At the time, a lot of our existing hangars were designed for smaller aircraft. Some showed their age in bothSTART TO FINISH EXPERTISEtechnology and wear and tear. We embarked on a facility masterSingle-source for Design, Manufacturing, & On-Site Services planning process that began with a flagship facility in Houston and has evolved through a series of iterations that combine prototype 800.274.0144|FULFAB.COMthinking, site-adapted solutions and lessons learned as we go.AirportImprovement.comMarch | April 2023'