Full cycle: how TARMAC Aerosave stores, maintains and recycles airliners 

If you were to try to list the airports around the world hosting the largest number of A380 double-decker aircraft, Dubai (DXB), Singapore (SIN) and London Heathrow (LHR) might possibly spring to mind. However, a rather unsuspected name pops up on that list not far behind these major global hubs,  

On a regular day, Tarbes-Lourdes-Pyrenees Airport (LDE), a small regional airport in the south of France, presents quite a sight to behold, with several of these giant aircraft lined up on the apron while the snow-capped peaks of the Pyerenees, the mountain range that divides France from Spain, loom in the background. 

To be clear, this corner of rural France is not about to become a major air travel hub anytime soon, even if the nearby Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, a major pilgrimage site, is able to draw crowds from around the world on special occasions. 

Instead, the presence of so many large aircraft is down to than the existence in Tarbes of one of the few companies in the world specializing in what is known in some industry circles as ‘aircraft transition’.  

The fruits of a collaborative project 

TARMAC Aerosave traces its roots back to 2007 and the ‘Pamela Project’, an initiative led by Airbus and a number of research and industry partners which sought to drive the development and adoption of new technologies into the field of aircraft maintenance.  

This collaborative project provided the launchpad for the European aircraft manufacturer joining forces with two other of the project’s participants, engine maker Safran and diversified utilities and waste treatment group Suez Environment, to launch Tarmac Aerosave as a fully-fledged, stand-alone business. 

Based in Tarbes and with two additional sites in Europe (in Teruel, Spain, and Toulouse-Francazal, also in France), TARMAC Aerosave provides a suite of services that covers pretty much the whole life-cycle of commercial aircraft, including short and long term storage, mid-life maintenance and overhaul, as well as dismantling and recycling when the aircraft reach the end of their operational lives. 

TARMAC AerosaveTo the credit of TARMAC Aerosave’s three founding partners, the disposal and recycling business was launched when the issue of sustainability had far less prominence than it has within the industry today. That early start has doubtlessly helped Tarmac Aerosave get a leading international position in some of these very specialized markets.  

A major turning point, however, was the COVID-19 pandemic. When, one after another, airlines were forced to ground their entire fleets, a scramble ensued to find places to park hundreds of aircraft for an indefinite period of time. 

TARMAC Aerosave was one of the operators able to step in and provide not only storage space, but also all of the specialized services necessary to keep aircraft airworthy and preserve their value while grounded. 

“It takes us two weeks to get an aircraft ready to fly again from the moment the decision has been taken to reactivate it.” explained Lisa Pomès, VP Commercial at TARMAC Aerosave, who welcomed AeroTime for a field visit to the company’s main site in Tarbes. 

Pomès explained that the surge in demand for storage services during the pandemic led to an increase in TARMAC Aerosave’s workload in other areas as well, as many airlines became familiar with the full suite of services offered by the company. 

Pomès highlighted the fact that while the image of the ‘aircraft graveyard’ often captures the public imagination, the three facilities managed by TARMAC Aerosave in France and Spain are nothing of the sort. In fact, around 80% of aircraft that pass through one of these centers end up returning to service.  

TARMAC AerosaveA major part of TARMAC Aerosave’s activity comes from aircraft leasing companies that regularly need some of their aircraft to be transferred or “transitioned” from one airline to another. This involves not only the preceptive maintenance checks, but often also a cabin refitting, as well as keeping the aircraft in storage for a temporary period of time. Finally, the last step in the transition loop, before the handover to a new lessee, is often the re-painting, which is done either at Teruel or Toulouse-Francazal by IAC, a TARMAC Aerosave partner. 

In fact, during 2024, 150 aircraft came into TARMAC Aerosave’s facilities and another 150 left to resume operations. This figure is still far from TARMAC Aerosave’s total capacity, as together its three sites in France and Spain can handle up to 280 aircraft at any one time.  

The locations of those sites were chosen in great part because they offered a combination of plentiful space together with suitable climatic conditions, with dry weather, low air salinity and low temperature variation. There is also a tax regime aspect to it, though, since both France and Spain have tax regulations that are favorable to aircraft transition activity, with some VAT and customs duties exemptions, a non-negligible aspect when talking about transactions that usually involve many millions of dollars. 

And once you have an aircraft at Tarbes, why not perform some maintenance on it? 

TARMAC AerosaveTARMAC Aerosave can perform up to six-year C-checks at Tarbes, for a broad diversity of aircraft types. And perhaps not surprisingly, considering Safran is one of its shareholders, it also has an engine shop capable of servicing some of the most modern engine types, such as the state-of-the-art CFM LEAP series. 

The engines are also in an asset class on their very own, with their own leasing ecosystem not unlike that of a full aircraft. And TARMAC Aerosave is also servicing this segment of the market, offering operators space to store up to 120 engines of all types simultaneously and in the right conditions. 

TARMAC AerosaveWhen the parts are worth more than the whole 

Sadly, no matter how well maintained an aircraft is, some of them will fly to Tarbes for their last journey. It was at Tarbes, for example, that the first A380 ever withdrawn from service was scrapped in 2018. 

Aircraft scrapping and recycling amounts to around 20% of TARMAC Aerosave’s business.  

Aircraft components are often more valuable separately than as part of an old aircraft, so a lot of effort goes into identifying and recovering those parts that can be given a new lease of life. TARMAC Aerosave has even a unique piece of proprietary equipment, a large laser-cutting machine capable of slicing through the fuselage of an A380 as if it were butter.  

TARMAC AerosaveEvery single piece is checked, sorted and assessed, either for further use in other aircraft or for disposal.  

Those components that are deemed fit for reuse are then packed, ready to be shipped across the world to their new users. 

“It’s like having an aircraft in a box,” said Pomès, while showing AeroTime around one of the warehouses full of neatly stacked packages containing pretty much every single imaginable aircraft component. 

The area where the aircraft are dismantled is also fitted with a drainage system that collects the liquids and chemicals found throughout the aircraft systems and takes them to a dedicated basin for further treatment. 

At the end of the process, up to 92% of the weight of the aircraft can be recycled, the remaining 8% going to landfill. 

However, this is a process that is not without complexities, since each material requires a specific recovery process and technology.  

In this regard, composites are particularly difficult to recycle, which poses some questions about the way the end-of-cycle process is going to be handled in a not-too-distant future, since the latest generations of aircraft, such as the B787 and the A350, contain massive amounts of composites.  

While companies like Airbus are already working on some solutions for composites recycling, TARMAC Aerosave is thinking out of the box to find new uses for the 8% of materials that can’t currently be recovered. 

TARMAC Aerosave is in fact preparing the launch of a new furniture line which will include items made of repurposed aircraft parts.  

Unusually for such an eminently industrial company, this part of the business will be direct to consumers (B2C) and conducted 100% online.  

New horizons for TARMAC Aerosave 

Whereas the A380 is the largest and quite possibly most iconic aircraft type you can see regularly at Tarbes, the facility welcomes all sorts of planes.  

Remarkably, Pomès revealed that during 2024 about half of the aircraft that passed through TARMAC Aerosave Tarbes center were widebody aircraft. This is quite a striking figure, because there are many more narrowbodies in service with airlines globally. 

The fact that widebody aircraft are overrepresented at a facility like the one at Tarbes can be explained by two factors.  

One is that the widebody market is less liquid, which means that aircraft often spend longer periods of time on the ground between different operators.  

The other is the increase in demand for narrowbody aircraft from across the world. Since manufacturers have long waiting lists, many airlines have opted for extending their leases on narrowbody aircraft and retaining their aircraft for longer periods of time, thus lowering the type of rotation between lessees. 

With aircraft fleets continuing to grow unabated, TARMAC Aerosave keeps expanding its geographical footprint and the scope of its operations.  

In October 2024, TARMAC Aerosave inaugurated a large hangar at Teruel airport in Spain, capable of hosting A380 aircraft. The new structure was built in just under six months using Spantec’s modular technology. 

And a fourth site is soon set to be opened in Chengdu, China.  

This new 25,000 sq. meter service center, in which TARMAC Aerosave is partnering with Airbus and a local partner, will offer all of TARMAC Aerosave’s services to the Chinese market, replicating the capabilities of the Tarbes facility on a smaller scale – for now. The post Full cycle: how TARMAC Aerosave stores, maintains and recycles airliners  appeared first on AeroTime.

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