‍After three months and 100,000 hours of work by hundreds of personnel, China has completed a service of its first Airbus A380 jumbo jet, the world’s largest passenger airliner. State-owned China Southern Airlines put the monster double-decker back into use to fly the CZ3099 route from Guangzhou to Beijing on Friday.

China Southern began to receive and operate A380 aircraft in 2011. As required by Airbus, each of its models has to go through a comprehensive body check within six years of service. With China Southern’s five A380s entering their sixth year of use in 2017, they must each be checked this year.

The Airbus A380 in full China Southern livery /VCG Photo

And it is quite a job.

The preliminary work for this first service began in April 2016, including training staff and preparing thousands of specialist materials and tools. Guangzhou Aircraft Maintenance Engineering Co., which took charge of the inspection and maintenance work, developed a customized scaffold to allow staff to maneuver around a plane around 25 meters high and more than 70 meters long.

During the three months, an average of 90 personnel worked daily and the number reached 140 at peak times. They renewed the cabin, conducted test flights and repainted an area of 4,000 square meters, equivalent to 10 basketball courts.

China’s aviation industry has boomed in recent years, and it has been both buying planes and developing its own to keep pace with demand. The C919, the first Chinese-built passenger jetliner, completed its first public flight test last month, embodying the country’s hopes of taking on industry giants Airbus and Boeing.