Royal Aeronautical Society Heathrow Branch December 2018 Lecture -
[Charles Abell Named Lecture]
"Lufthansa Technik: Overhauling Landing Gear as Independent MRO - Challenging Markets and New Technologies"
by Christian Wicker, Director of Sales & Marketing, Lufthansa Technik Landing Gear Services UK


ABSTRACT:
The landing gear is the only aircraft system without built-in redundancy - you need to rely 100 percent on its proper function.

A landing gear combines a multitude of parts (e.g. 2,100 parts have to be cleaned, repaired and overhauled for the landing gear overhaul of an A320). Its maintenance therefore requires a process chain with an outstanding degree of coordination.

With designed flow-principled workshops and vast in-house capabilities with state-of-the-art equipment, Lufthansa Technik provides these services since decades at its landing gear overhaul facilities in the Americas, Europe and Asia. In this lecture, Christian Wicker will highlight and discuss how Lufthansa Technik successfully is overhauling landing gears as independent provider to an MRO aftermarket.

The presentation will cover technical aspects, in particular new technologies required, but also focusses on the market views and demands from airline customers.


ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Christian Wicker is the Global Head of Sales and Marketing for Lufthansa Technik’s landing gear division. Since February 2016 he is based at its UK entity close to London’s Heathrow Airport and looking after the Sales and Customer Service activities for a worldwide customer base.

He joined Lufthansa Technik in Apil 2005 after completing his studies at the Ulm University and the Neu-Ulm University of Applied Sciences with a diploma in Industrial Engineering (Diplom Wirtschaftsingenieur). During that time Christian managed several Key Customer accounts in Hamburg and later as well from its office at Fort Lauderdale airport with a broad range of airline customers starting from Russia’s legacy airline and including US Low Cost operators.

Joining back the head quarter in Hamburg he soon was responsible for managing different teams, in particular the 24/7 Lufthansa Technik AOG desk which manages more than 300.000 urgent and critical material movements every year by a team of approx. 60 people.

In his next step he was responsible for the sales team of power-by-the-hour component support deals. Trying to learn a new aspect of the broad product portfolio he transferred into the landing gear division to the UK almost three years ago.