Browsing Airliners.net ahead of my trip to Japan in 2013 I noticed that there were a number of photos appearing taken within the ANA Maintenance hangars at Tokyo's Haneda airport.

A quick google search later and I discovered that ANA offered public tours of their maintenance facility, and that they had a website where you could book a place on one of the tours. With the help of google translate I was able to navigate the booking website and book myself onto the only free date and tour that was available during my trip. Tours become book able 6 months before the tour date and are free to book, so I was lucky that there was still a tour available considering it was booked only x weeks before I was due to travel.

Once booked, ANA Maintenance emailed a pass that required to be printed and shown to security on the day of the visit, along with directions on how to get to the hangars.

Getting to the Hangar

I was staying near to Tokyo Station for the first week of my trip, so jumped a Yamanote Line train to Hamamatsucho station. From there I took the Tokyo Monorail to Shin Seibijo station, which sits between the Haneda International Terminal & Haneda Terminal 1 Monorail stops. Only local trains stop at Shin Seibijo station. The Haneda Express & Rapid monorails do not stop at Shin Seibijo.
From Shin Seibijo it is a short walk of around 5 minutes to the maintenance facility.

The Tour

On arrival, the security checks the pass that you have been emailed and allows you access to a reception area within one of the buildings. Here there are some model planes, a small seating area, a Tristar flight deck, an ANA shop and a reception desk. At the reception desk, you are given an id badge to wear that has the date and time of the tour on it.


ANA Robot in reception area


Boeing 777-300 model in reception area

When the tour starts, you are taken into a lecture theatre where a video is shown that gives an insight into what goes on within the maintenance hangars, along with some impromptu questions to the audience. Whoever answered the question correctly was given a piece of ANA memorabilia. Not speaking Japanese, I was left to make do with the subtitles on the video. At the end of the video presentation, staff came round giving out an A4 sheet of paper with instructions on how to behave within the hangar and an A4 ANA we fly first 787 document wallet to take away with you. Names are then called out and the tour group is split into smaller groups with each of the smaller groups being assigned to a tour guide. Before heading over to the maintenance hangar everyone is given a hard hat to wear.


One of the artefacts within the lecture theatre

Once inside the hangar, we were taken along a high passageway at the rear of the hangar that allowed us to see not the scale of the hangar from on high, but also to see the 2 aircraft that were in it - a 787 from ANA that was undergoing a check and a 737-400 of Solaseed Air.







From the passageway we descended a set of stairs to come out just behind where the 787 was undergoing maintenance.


ANA economy seats

In a well area between the maintenance bays was a tool storage area.


Tool Store

An interesting sight was 2 rows of tricycles which are used to ferry parts about within the hangar. We then proceed to walk out onto the hangar floor to get a closer look at the 737 & the 787. It is worth noting that you are not permitted to touch the aircraft and are not taken onboard any aircraft during the hangar tour.











After the walk around we were taken to the open hangar door to see what was parked outside on the maintenance ramp. There was another 787 & a 767 parked there, however the low cloud and overcast conditions did not make for good photos from the hangar door.

With that it was back to the reception area of the other building where hard hats were returned and the tour was brought to a conclusion. All in the tour lasted approximately 90 minutes.

Despite not understanding a word that was said by the tour guide, I found the whole tour to be an enjoyable experience and would recommend it to anyone who wants to see another side to aviation.

ANA request that any photos that are to be published be sent to them for approval prior to uploading to the web etc. One stipulation is that only photos of ANA aircraft may be uploaded, and another that no faces of either employees or other visitors be shown. All photos accompanying this report have been scrutinised by ANA and uploaded with their permission.