On my recent visit to Japan, I had one more objective before going home. Something that is high on the list of every aviation geek. Japanese airlines such as All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines regularly hold a tour of their aircraft hangar, in which the public can take part. The best thing is that this entire tour is free.
That being said, since it was free of charge, finding a slot can be quite challenging but I was quite lucky to find a few slots that were available only a week before my scheduled departure to Japan. Excited? You bet!
I found out about this program from OneMoreWeektoGo and KN Aviation blogs, and followed through the steps to enroll. While the website is still only available on Japanese, they seemed to have a revamp of the enrollment website, which I think is easier than when the previous bloggers went through.
One of the key differences is now you can simply apply as a foreign visitor, providing only your passport without having to filled the tiny details of your hotel address. I spent less than 20 minutes going through the translation and enrollment process, and happy enough ANA responded with a confirmation in just a few hours.
The maintenance center is reachable through the Tokyo Monorail line towards Tokyo Haneda Airport. Alight at the nearest station, Shin-Seibijo, where you will embark on a roughly 900m walk, approximately 15 minutes. On arrival, you have to present your reservation to the receptionist. The office where you register also contain a gift shop selling various ANA exclusive merchandise, a live-size ANA Gundam action figure, and model seats ANA Economy and Business Class seat products.
Closer to the starting time of the tour, the receptionist on duty will provide you with a visitor tag and then show you a briefing hall where all the hangar tour participants gather. The briefing hall also contains a lot of aircraft memorabilia, you would not want to miss.
At the classroom-like setting, a staff representative will welcome everyone and gave a short presentation about ANA as an airline, their approach to safety, service achievements, and quick facts of this particular facility in Haneda. While the presentation is done in Japanese, a 20-minutes corporate profile video has an English subtitle.
Following the video, tour participants are gathered to collect their safety helmets and was given a brief instruction on the do and don't(s) while inside the hangar. Video recordings are not permitted, but you are more than welcome to take photos of the things they show you on the tour. That being said, if you intend to post photos from the tour to social media you are advised to notify ANA through their email (that was given on the tour). They responded pretty quick.
Everyone walk in around 20-25 people group, under the guidance of a tour leader who conducts the commentary in Japanese, but he's more than happy to answer your questions in English. We made a few stops.
The first is an overview of the entire hangar, seen from a platform approximately three storey high. Next stop, we get to see the set of tools and equipment used by each ANA mechanic. The proper procedure they collected the tools and return them, to make sure no tools gone unaccounted for. In this large hangar, maintenance personnel move around using bicycles.
On our next stop, we got to see several parts such as aircraft tires for B787, and relevant engine parts that are supposedly stored for future use.
Last but not least, we got to move closer towards several aircraft that were parked inside the hangar. We were able to observe some staff member working through what we believe is the weather radar on the Boeing 787's nose. With approximately more than 30 minutes to spare, we were given more chances to take photos of these gigantic aircraft, and even selfies from a safe distance.
At the end of the one hour hangar walkaround, we were ushered back to the function hall that we were gathered through earlier. That is where the tour ended and the ANA staff thank everyone for attending the event.
From my perspective, I think ANA is doing a pretty good job on holding these tours. This can be a way to introduce the public's interest into aviation, and nurture young talents into the world of aviation engineering. As an aviation geek, this tour is an amazing way to get behind the scenes of the airline world, definitely must-do even if you don't really understand Japanese language.
