Southwest Maintenance Facility is Now Complete at Hobby Airport

HOUSTON—Southwest Airlines Co. recently opened a new maintenance facility at William P. Hobby International Airport, highlighting the importance the city holds for the airline and underscoring Southwest’s commitment to safety. The 240,000-square-foot maintenance complex, now the largest in the airline’s network, includes a 140,000-square-foot hangar.

This allows for nearly 400 Houston-based technical operations employees to work simultaneously on up to six 737 aircraft indoors with space for an additional eight aircraft outside the hangar bays. The remaining 100,000 square feet of facility space encompasses offices, training facilities, warehouse space, parts storage and other support areas including a seat shop, parts fabrication area and paint booth.

“We thank Southwest Airlines for its nearly 50-year partnership and commitment to the Houston community,” says Mayor Sylvester Turner. “Between the direct employment of 5,000 local residents, continued growth in flight activity and this investment in infrastructure, the airline represents $3 billion in economic impact for Houston each year, and that’s something that makes us proud and thankful.”

The new hangar has paved aircraft parking areas, aircraft wash facilities, taxiway connections, parking and loading docks. The overall construction program consisted of six projects including the construction of a new duct bank for the Houston Airport System and Federal Aviation Administration communications, site demolition of several existing structures, relocation of the airport’s automated surface observing system, relocation of two navigation aids, construction of a 20-acre storm water management facility for flood control and ultimately the construction of the hangar. It replaces Southwest’s smaller technical operations facility at Hobby Airport which opened in 1988.

“This state-of-the-art hangar will support our technical operations team’s unwavering commitment to safety and maintaining our fleet to the highest standards,” said Gary Kelly, Southwest Airlines chairman and CEO. “I’m very proud of our hundreds of technical operations employees in Houston for the work they do every day to support our growing operation from Houston’s Hobby Airport, which includes almost 200 departures per day during peak seasons to nearly 70 destinations across the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean.”

McCarthy Building Companies Inc. completed a portion of the construction of the Technical Operations Maintenance Hangar project. McCarthy self-performed the earth work, utilities and concrete on the project. Preconstruction began in October 2017 and work on the hangar began in spring 2018.

The hangar is a hybrid pre-engineered metal building. Outside the hangar is 450,000 square feet of apron paving and two wash stations as well as locations for four future wash stations. Additionally, a 630-foot taxiway connects the apron paving to Taxiway K.

“The Technical Operations Maintenance Hangar is McCarthy’s latest completed project for Southwest Airlines and we look forward to future collaborations that help fuel their growth,” said Jim Stevenson, McCarthy’s Houston division president.

This is McCarthy’s fourth recent project with Southwest Airlines in its southern region. Other projects include hanger renovations at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta and Southwest’s Leadership and Aircrew Development/LEAD Office and Flight Training Facility at Love Field.

“McCarthy previously worked on the Southwest Airlines Wings project which was an office building, flight attendant and staff training facility, a parking garage and flight simulator building,” Kyle Rhodes, project director with McCarthy, tells GlobeSt.com. “The flight simulator building was a mission critical facility consisting of a hardened shell structure to protect equipment from tornados. The Southwest Airlines Houston Hobby Hangar is an aircraft maintenance hangar where planes are worked on in various capacities–from individual item repairs to complete service overhauls. The size of building was larger than a typical hangar which made it more suited to a hybrid pre-engineered design. It has a complex low expansion foam fire protection system and significant air operations area apron concrete paving. Additionally, the enabling work for the hangar was significant which including moving two radio towers, installing new communications duct banks, a 20 acre storm water management facility and demolition of existing structures for both the FAA and the Houston Airport System.”

The airline is currently investing in aircraft maintenance build-outs at Baltimore/Washington International Airport and Denver International Airport, as well as an expansion of its maintenance facility at Phoenix’s Sky Harbor International Airport. Including the projects in Denver and Baltimore, the airline expects to have eight maintenance hangars throughout the United States, GlobeSt.com learns.