Out With The Old, In With The New

[gguillory]

When I was hired at Southwest Airlines in May 1997, we had just finished construction on a new hangar in Dallas to house the latest and greatest "Next Generation" Boeing 737, the dash 700. The -700 aircraft was much larger than the -200, -300, or -500 aircraft that we had in our fleet at the time. It had a wider wing span and a taller landing gear that makes its tail sit higher in the air, so we needed to build a hangar that it would fit into. We have since retired all -200 aircraft and only have -300, -500 and -700 aircraft.  As our fleet has grown, we have purchased only -700 aircraft, so we needed larger hangars that would accommodate them. On July 15, 2002, we opened another hangar in Dallas that would house  more -700 aircraft. In November of last year, we began construction here on another new hangar.  The plans for the new hangar called for the removal of the two original hangars that could only house the -300 and -500 aircraft, and they were razed a couple of months earlier in September 2006.  Although we all enjoyed hearing that we were going to build another new hangar, it was sad to know that some of our veteran Mechanics had to say good-by to these original hangars at our Love Field Maintenance Base.                                                                                                                                          After 14 months of construction we now have a new hangar that houses three -700 aircraft and of course easily houses the -300 and -500 aircraft.  I've got to go now... I have to move my tool box into the new Hangar.