The lower hangar included an annex for stores and provided useful protected space for aircraft maintenance. Treating it as a ready-aircraft area would be much slower because every machine first had to reach the upper hangar and then pass through other aircraft and repair activity on the way to the flight deck. That bottleneck did not erase its value as a workshop and storage level. Béarn had used rails and lift interfaces for a similar transfer system, but those components had to remain aligned while the sea flexed the hull. Changes between hot and cold imperial deployments added another source of dimensional movement and maintenance difficulty. Joffre's extra lift therefore expanded usable space while also carrying forward a demanding handling problem.
Notable Point · 18:54-20:31
The lower hangar favoured maintenance over rapid sorties
Protected lower-hangar space worked for stores and repairs, but moving operational aircraft through two hangars and multiple lifts created congestion.