Emirates Airline has its own aircraft painting facility – The Emirates Aircraft Appearance Centre. This is the world’s largest aircraft painting facility owned by an airline. During the last 12 months it has completely stripped and repainted 33 aircraft or 13% of its fleet.
During the year, Emirates gave a fresh coat of paint to three Airbus A380s and 22 Boeing 777s, in addition to eight aircraft that were retired as a part of the airline’s strategy to operate a young, modern, and efficient aircraft fleet.
Emirates’ state-of-the-art facility in Dubai also installed decals on 72 aircraft and executed over 105,000 painting jobs including cabin touch-ups across the world’s largest fleet of wide-body aircraft in 2015.
Some of the eye-catching customized decals installed on the Emirates fleet during the course of the year include the Real Madrid A380, the Paris Saint-Germain A380, the Arsenal 777, the A.C. Milan A380, the Arsenal A380 and the United for Wildlife A380s.
The process for repainting an A380 involves four different stages starting from: preparing and masking the aircraft to protect sensitive components from paint application; chemical stripping of existing paint; sanding of external surfaces followed by the actual phase of repainting which comprises of pre-treatment, painting of the aircraft with various coats, marking of signs and finally, the application of a clear coat for gloss retention. This is followed by an exhaustive inspection and quality assurance check before the aircraft is released back into service.
A team of 34 professionals worked for nearly 6,000 man hours to complete the repainting of ‘Echo Delta Delta’, the fourth A380 to join the Emirates fleet. The mammoth ‘strip and repaint’ makeover was completed in 15 days, setting a new company record. The painting part of the process took just seven days.
