Dubai builds 'world's largest' airport hangar

Due for completion in early summer, the Dubai Airwing Hangar has eight sets of doors which are 26 metres high and span 570 metres, the length of almost six football pitches.

They were designed, manufactured and installed by UK-based Jewers Doors Limited after the company won a contract worth Dhs20 million through its appearance at the Airport Build & Supply Exhibition in Dubai, which is this year attracting senior airport and civil aviation officials from the Middle East, Indian Subcontinent and Africa.

Delivering the huge Esavian doors, manufactured and partly assembled at Jewers Doors' headquarters in Bedfordshire, England, was a major logistical challenge.

In February, ten shipping containers of specialist hangar door equipment and drive units were sent to Dubai from the UK, with a further ten containers of special steel track section being sent from Belgium and Luxembourg.

Sixty tonnes of special aluminium alloy cladding was shipped from France, with a further 60 tonnes being sent from South Africa followed by power supply systems from Holland and high specification nuts and bolts from Germany and Spain.

The hangar, described by Jewers Doors as "probably the largest ever built," is due for completion later this month, around the time of the latest edition of the Airport Build & Supply Exhibition. Organised by Streamline Marketing and taking place on 23-25 May at Airport Expo Dubai, the event provides Jewers Doors with major extra business potential as it brings together developers behind airport expansions worth billions of dollars in the Gulf region.

Jewers Doors won the Dubai Airwing contract after successfully building doors for a new Emirates Engineering hangar in Dubai to house the Airbus A380, the world's largest passenger aircraft. Emirates Airline has ordered 45 of the new A380s.

"We've been active in the Middle East for nearly 50 years and it's our most important export market, accounting for approximately 75 per cent of our export turnover and about 90 per cent of the export orders for hangar doors," said Chris Jewers, managing director of Jewers Doors. The company's long list of major projects completed at Middle East airports include the Amiri Flight hangars in Doha, Bahrain and Abu Dhabi and other airport projects in Cairo, Kuwait, Oman and Yemen

Jewers Doors' Middle East success helps to explain why a record number of more than 300 leading airport and aviation suppliers will gather in Dubai later this month. All will have pre-arranged meetings with the relevant project manager, engineer or architect on the Dubai Department of Civil Aviation's expansion team, enabling them to discuss Dubai International Airport's expansion as well as the recently-announced Jebel Ali Airport.

Held under the patronage of H.H.Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, President of the Department of Civil Aviation, Dubai and Chairman of Emirates Group, the exhibition also enjoys the support of Europe's four leading airport suppliers' associations - French Airport & ATC Technology (PROAVIA), German Airport Technology & Equipment (GATE), British Airports Group and Netherlands Airport Technology (NAT).