LEARNING UNIT 7: The maintenance of airline fleets

Review

The purpose of learning unit 7 is to introduce you on the maintenance of airline fleets. It
highlights why airlines perform maintenance of airline fleets as well as the types of
maintenance.

Unit Outcomes
On completion of this unit, you should be able to

• discuss the reasons on why airlines perform maintenance

• list the different types of maintenance
• explain maintenance policies and regulations within the aviation sector
• discuss why it is important for the SACAA to do maintenance scheduling
• understand the maintenance plan-routing and rotation

7.1 Why do airlines perform maintenance?

Aircraft, like all vehicles, equipment and machinery, need regular maintenance of their working
parts in order to ensure that they continue to function properly and that they are able to operate
for the duration of their useful lives. Maintenance includes inspections, component
replacement, capital equipment repair and replacement, as well as technical fault and
structural repairs, amongst many other tasks (Jardine & Tsang 2013:14). By maintaining its
aircraft properly, the airline is able to provide its customers with a safe, airworthy, comfortable
and reliable service (Bazargan 2012). Different aircraft types and models have different
maintenance requirements. These requirements are predetermined by the aircraft
manufacturer but need to be implemented by the airline enterprise and monitored by the civil
aviation authority (Bazargan 2012).

Maintenance costs contribute considerably to an airline’s cost base (Wipro 2013). Research
suggests that maintenance costs can make up between 10 and 15% of an airline’s budget
(McFadden & Worrells 2012:63). These costs include labour costs, equipment costs, spare
parts costs and, of course, the opportunity cost of having the aircraft on the ground and not in
the sky, generating revenue. It is important that airlines do all they can to ensure that
maintenance costs are kept to a minimum in order to maximise their profit margins (Jakoet
2009). As the airline industry becomes increasingly competitive, and as cost-cutting strategies
become increasingly important, there has over recent years been a global trend towards

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maintenance outsourcing (McFadden & Worrells 2012:64). As recently as 2008, the United
States of America’s Department of Transport stated that ‘‘overall, major air carriers outsourced
an average of 64 percent of their maintenance expenses compared to 37 percent in 1996’’
(McFadden & Worrells 2012:64).

Ultimately, aircraft maintenance is essential for a well-functioning airline and represents an

unavoidable cost. In the upcoming sections, we discuss the various aspects of maintenance
that are important for airlines from an operational, financial and safety perspective. The link
below contains information on the Airbus's maintenance:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%09Why+do+airlines+perform+maintenanc
e%3F

7.2 Types of maintenance

There are three main categories of aircraft maintenance: line maintenance, base maintenance
and defect rectification. Let’s take a closer look at each type:

7.2.1 Line maintenance

Line maintenance is sometimes referred to as short routine maintenance (Bazargan 2012). It

is the regular, short-haul inspection of aircraft during the time between arrival at and departure
from an airport (Bazargan 2012). These checks can be carried out daily or weekly, depending
on the type of aircraft and the distances it is traveling. As a general rule, line maintenance can
be described as any maintenance that is done outside of a hangar – that is, on the apron or in
the parking bay (Mike 2014). The checks that are performed will be those that are contained
in the airline’s maintenance programme under line maintenance and are usually performed by
line maintenance service providers at the airports (Mike 2014). Line maintenance is
considered to be a proactive type of maintenance – checking the aircraft and repairing any
faults before they become a problem.

7.2.2 Base maintenance

Base maintenance, often referred to as heavy or hangar maintenance, can be broadly

described as any scheduled maintenance performed besides line maintenance (Mike 2014).
While line maintenance is performed outside of a hangar, base maintenance is generally
performed inside a hangar. It includes the replacement of all components, the refurbishment
of all interiors, any structural work, corrosion prevention or any other scheduled maintenance

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(Mike 2014). Base maintenance is a proactive type of maintenance in that it involves condition
monitoring of components and equipment and, when necessary, its preventative replacement
(Jardine & Tsang 2013:1). In section 7.5.2.3 we discuss preventative replacement in more
detail. In section 7.2.3 below, we discuss the intervals at which base maintenance is performed
and the reasons why these intervals are chosen.

NOTE:

Hangar

A hangar is essentially a garage for an aircraft. It is a closed structure in which aircraft are
housed for various reasons when they are not operational.

7.2.3 Defect rectification

Defect rectification is reactive maintenance. It is the correction of any defects (faults or failures)
that occur during aircraft operations and is therefore also called breakdown or corrective
maintenance (Jardine & Tsang 2013:1). Generally, any defects are identified during routine
line maintenance. Once identified, they are then assessed and appropriate action is taken –
that is, they are either repaired there and then if possible, or the aircraft is removed from
service and the defect is repaired during base maintenance (Mike 2014).

ACTIVITY 7.1

With the knowledge you've gained about air fleet maintenance, you may head to
Discussion Forum 7.1 and discuss with your fellow students the distinction between
proactive and reactive maintenance, using practical examples.

7.3 Maintenance policies and regulations

The Civil Aviation Act 13 of 2009 contains the regulations related to civil aviation maintenance
in South Africa. It outlines the policies governing the issuing of maintenance engineering
licenses, the establishment of maintenance organisations, and the general maintenance rules
that airlines need to adhere to (SACAA website).

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The general maintenance rules establish a minimum standard of maintenance that is
considered necessary to ensure that aircraft operations remain safe for both operators and
passengers.

The South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA) is the regulatory body that ensures that
the policies and rules in the Act are adhered to (SACAA website). The SACAA ultimately
approves operator applications for maintenance programmes. These maintenance
programmes include the details of the aircraft (models, engines, etc), the frequency of all
maintenance procedures, the airline’s reliability programmes, the scheduling of maintenance
tasks, and signed documentation agreeing to all of the above by the operator (SACAA
website).

Besides enforcing the maintenance rules and regulations, the SACAA is there to ensure that
an airline’s maintenance programme is transparent and documented (Jakoet 2009). These
are key characteristics of a maintenance programme and are tools that can be used to
minimise the accidents when faults and mistakes happen. Airlines need to make sure that they
have a structured maintenance system that records the details of all processes and repairs
conducted – that is dates, personnel, details of the components used and so on. In section
7.5.1, we discuss why this transparency is so important for airlines and personnel (people
employed by the airlines) alike.

The SACAA’s overall objective is to ensure that all flights in South Africa are safe for crew and
passengers. Therefore, the SACAA has the authority to ground aircraft and suspend an
airline’s operations should it find that maintenance requirements are not followed or adhered
to (being met) (SACAA website). For lesser offences, the SACAA can impose monetary fines
and penalties. Airlines are therefore generally compliant and take all precautions and actions
necessary to avoid these. For further explanation based on the maintenance policies and
regulations, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOoKqOQ-GCw.

7.4 Maintenance scheduling

7.4.1 Maintenance constraint considerations

Although maintenance is crucial to safe and efficient flights, maintenance engineers are under
constant pressure to minimise maintenance time and cost requirements, especially as the
airline industry becomes more and more competitive, and utilisation levels and cost cutting
become more important. In this section, we discuss these constraints, along with other barriers

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to maintenance. This discussion should give you an idea of just how complex aircraft fleet
maintenance is.

7.4.1.1 Barriers to uncovering maintenance issues

Before we get into the operational constraints that maintenance is subject to, let’s take a look
at the industry level barriers that make it difficult for maintenance engineers and airline
operators alike to identify maintenance issues and safety risks. In section 7.4, we discussed
how the civil aviation authorities enforce certain regulations around transparency and reporting
when it comes to maintenance. These regulations are exceptionally important as they help to
create a “paper trail” of what maintenance has been performed, along with all the details about
when, where and how. Therefore, when something goes wrong, operators are able to identify
the reasons more easily. Unfortunately, there are three major barriers to identifying these
issues.

NOTE: Paper trail

“Paper trail” is a term used to describe the evidence that is created when all processes within
a certain operation are recorded “on paper”. In other words, they are hand-written on receipts
or order forms, documented in e-mails or on software systems and so on. The idea behind the
term is that you can “follow the trail” and find the source of a problem, disagreement or
decision.

The first barrier is time. Often errors only become evident a long time after the initial error was
made (Jakoet 2009:26). Because of this, the initial error becomes more and more difficult to
identify. This type of barrier highlights the importance of a paper trail even more. Secondly,
the general blame culture of the aviation industry, and often of society in general, discourages
open and honest communication about maintenance issues and incidents (Jakoet 2009:26).
Individuals do all they can to avoid being personally responsible for maintenance issues,
especially when they result in safety concerns or accidents. Lastly, the prevalence of
outsourced maintenance often makes maintenance issue tracking more difficult (Jakoet
2009:26). As workforces become more specialised, and as privatisation of different parts of
the supply chain becomes more common, tracing faults becomes more complex. If all
maintenance functions are performed in-house, departmental communication should be
relatively easy. However, when you have to deal with external companies and employees, it
becomes more difficult.

When incidents or mistakes do occur, these barriers often make it more difficult to find the
causes. Airlines therefore need to ensure that they document their maintenance processes as

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accurately and thoroughly as possible so as to avoid time-consuming and costly investigation
processes.

7.4.1.2 Operational constraints to maintenance

Maintenance engineers are under a huge amount of pressure to perform adequate

maintenance processes within limited time frames and cost restrictions. However, the
scheduling of maintenance processes is also subject to certain operational constraints, which
we discuss here. Infrastructure limitations such as hangar space can impact on the
maintenance that can be done at certain airports (Samaranayake & Kiridena 2012:434).
Airports also have different maintenance capabilities for different fleets, and these capabilities
are affected by the fleet type, size and maintenance requirements (Bazargan 2012). Resource
availability is a big consideration for maintenance scheduling – the availability of sufficient
labour, components, spare-parts inventories, and equipment all have an impact on the
maintenance capacity that can be achieved by the maintenance engineer (Samaranayake &
Kiridena 2012:434). Maintenance providers and airlines therefore use mathematical
algorithms, expert systems and decision support systems to calculate the scheduling details
with regard to forecasting the labour force, materials and resources requirements and
allocation (Samaranayake & Kiridena 2012:434). These systems are usually packaged into a
computer software system that collates and analyses the data and maintenance requirements
and helps the airline to achieve maximum aircraft availability while still satisfying the safety
and maintenance regulations imposed by the aviation authorities at the minimum costs
achievable (Wipro 2013).

ACTIVITY 7.2

Now that you have learned about maintenance policies, go to Discussion Forum 7.2

and identify and discuss the barriers that make it difficult for airline fleets to be
maintained.

7.4.2 Forecasting the maintenance schedule

Maintenance schedules are very difficult to plan. There are many different factors to consider
and various constraints that affect the plan, as discussed above. Maintenance schedules are,

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however, generally based on one of three factors: aircraft age, aircraft condition or aircraft
usage.

7.4.2.1 Aircraft age

The age of an aircraft is a very important factor when it comes to maintenance, for obvious
reasons: the older the machinery, technology, and equipment is, the more likely it is to have
faults or require repairs. The age of the aircraft and its components needs to be assessed in
relation to the economic lifespan given by the manufacturers (Jardine & Tsang 2013:14). This
will give a good indication of likely reliability.

7.4.2.2 Aircraft condition

The reliability aspect of an aircraft leads us to the next factor to be considered when planning
a maintenance schedule: aircraft condition. As discussed in section 7.2 above, maintenance
is either preventative (proactive) or predictive (reactive). Condition-based repairs are
considered predictive maintenance (Samaranayake & Kiridena 2012:434). They involve the
replacement or repair of parts and equipment when they are in the process of failing
(Samaranayake & Kiridena 2012:434). These failures are either identified during line or base
maintenance processes and their repair is therefore unplanned. Such unscheduled
maintenance activities affect the resource reserves, spare parts inventory, labour force
capacity and ground time of an aircraft (Samaranayake & Kiridena 2012:434). There is
research to suggest that unplanned maintenance activities can constitute as much as 50% of
total base maintenance in some cases (Samaranayake & Kiridena 2012:434). Maintenance
providers and airlines therefore need to make allowances for this in their schedule planning.
This means that they need to forecast for unplanned maintenance activities so that the least
amount of disruption occurs, and so that they can minimise the delays and ground time of
aircraft.

7.4.2.3 Aircraft usage levels

Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, aircraft maintenance is performed based on certain
usage intervals. Civil aviation regulations require airlines to perform regular, scheduled
maintenance on their fleets in order to avoid any unsafe flights. These regulations, as
discussed in section 7.4 above, are strictly enforced by the SACAA and non-compliance will
result in the grounding of the aircraft (Jacobs et al. 2012:82). This regular maintenance is
preventative maintenance and will make up the bulk of the maintenance schedule. The usage
metrics used can vary between airlines, but generally include flight distance or flight time as
well as number of take-offs and landings (Jacobs et al. 2012:82). Schedules will be created

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around the usage levels at which maintenance is required, or set at a certain period of time
between maintenance checks. For example, an aircraft may require an overhaul maintenance
check after it has travelled for more than 500 hours, every 200 flight cycles or every nine
months, depending on the type of aircraft, the regulations in force and other similar factors.

NOTE: Flight cycle

One flight cycle begins when an aircraft takes off and ends when it lands. It is the term used
to describe the cycle of leaving the ground and then returning. As mentioned in the text, the
number of flight cycles can be used to measure aircraft usage.

Once an airline and a maintenance provider have forecast the maintenance requirements and
dates that they believe best fit the aircraft age, condition and usage levels, they then create
the maintenance schedule and eventually the organisation’s maintenance programme. This
maintenance programmes needs to be authorised by SACAA and is reviewed annually
(SACAA website). In the next section, we discuss the routing and aircraft rotation
considerations that will ultimately form the maintenance schedule.

7.5 CASE STUDY 1

ACTIVITY 7.3

Read the case study below and then go to Discussion Forum 7.3 to participate in a
discussion on this case study.

CASE STUDY 1: Southwest Airlines Maintenance Snafu Raises Safety Concerns

An article for the International Business Times, by Ismat Sarah Mangla:

“Southwest Airlines voluntarily grounded about one-fifth of its fleet on Tuesday, raising
concerns about operational safety procedures at the world's fourth-largest airline by
passengers carried. The move to temporarily ground the planes occurred when Southwest
discovered that a required maintenance check on 128 of its Boeing 737-700s’ standby
hydraulic systems had been missed. After Southwest notified the Federal Aviation Authority
of the issue, the FAA ruled late Tuesday to allow the airline to continue operating affected
aircraft for up to five days until the checks are completed.

Approximately 80 Southwest flights were cancelled on Tuesday while the airline awaited the

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FAA’s response. With most planes back in service Wednesday, Southwest told The
Associated Press it expected only 19 flights to be cancelled due to the maintenance issue
on Wednesday.

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“Southwest immediately and voluntarily removed the affected aircraft from service, initiated
maintenance checks, disclosed the matter to the FAA, and developed an action plan to
complete all overdue checks,” the airline said in a statement emailed to International
Business Times. “The safety of customers and employees is Southwest's highest priority
and the airline is working quickly to resolve the situation.”

The overdue inspections involved the hydraulic systems that control the plane's rudder if
the main system fails. "This is a periodic inspection of a backup system,” the FAA said in a
statement. “The FAA evaluated the risk and agreed that the airline could continue to operate
the planes during the short interim.”

But this isn’t the first time Southwest has had an issue with the FAA about compliance with
maintenance regulations. Last year, the FAA initiated a $12 million civil penalty against the
airline for failing to comply with federal regulations regarding repairs. According to a lawsuit
brought by the Justice Department in November, Southwest Airlines conducted improper
repairs on some of its planes and continued flying them after being told by the FAA that the
aircraft were not airworthy.

“They say the best indication of a safety culture is when a company does the right thing
when no one else is looking. Southwest failed in this regard. On the other hand, they did
self-report their violation,” aviation safety specialist Christine Negroni said in an email. “Too
much attention is paid by the public to fatal accidents. The true indicator of whether an airline
is safe is not the highly unusual fatal airplane accident, but rather how it handles everyday
maintenance and operations. With that criteria, clearly Southwest has some remedial work
to do.”

The failure, many experts agreed, likely has to do with the way the airline maintains its
records and alerts systems. “If I was the CEO of Southwest, I would have been with my
head of maintenance Tuesday night to look at whether they are equipped with the right
software systems, the right procedures and the right leadership,” said airline industry analyst
Henry Harteveldt. Southwest Airlines has not been known to be on the cutting edge of
technology when it comes to its consumer operations, and it’s possible that lack of forward
thinking has affected the airline’s operational procedures, as well.

Still, most experts were quick to point out Southwest’s excellent safety record thus far; the
airline, which operates only Boeing 737s, has had no fatalities in the air in its 44-year history.
Its only death occurred in 2005, when an aircraft skidded off the runway upon landing at

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 Chicago’s Midway Airport, colliding with a car on the ground and killing one person inside
the vehicle.

“This issue notwithstanding, Southwest has been very aggressive about safety. It’s an
excellent airline with a fantastic record,” said Geoffrey Thomas, editor-in-chief of
AirlineRatings.com. “Certainly some inspections have been missed, but that’s not peculiar
to Southwest. Other airlines do miss inspections, and in most cases it’s a technicality.
There’s no danger to the flying public. I do expect Southwest will have a good look at its
maintenance and oversight to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Brent Bowen, dean of the College of Aviation at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and
co-creator of the national Airline Quality Rating, said it’s positive that the airline brought the
misstep to the FAA’s attention on its own. “It gives me confidence that they’re willing to bring
it to forefront,” said Bowen, who plans to fly Southwest on Sunday. He added that the
airline’s previous issues with the FAA were related to inadequate record keeping.

Because the FAA did not require Southwest to take the affected planes out of service,
Harteveldt and others don’t believe the missed inspections posed a real threat to the flying
public. “If the FAA felt that this issue was serious enough, they would have told Southwest
to keep the planes grounded,” said Harteveldt. “And in this case it was the back-up systems
that weren’t inspected. That doesn’t mean the systems themselves were not working.”

That said, Southwest Airlines will likely have to work to reassure its passengers that it takes
safety and airline maintenance seriously. “It is extremely embarrassing for Southwest to
have missed these inspections,” said Thomas. “There has to be some accountability.”

(Mangla 2015)

7.6 The maintenance plan – routing and rotation

A maintenance plan is essentially a plan for rotating the use of different aircraft and planning
aircraft routes so that they have sufficient ground time to receive the maintenance that they
require (Jacobs et al. 2012:77–82). Working these requirements into an airline’s flight
schedule is extremely difficult and schedules are often changed only a few days before a
scheduled flight departure (Jacobs et al. 2012:82). Maintenance schedules and flight
schedules are interdependent. Airlines normally have maintenance hubs, at which airports
conduct the most of base maintenance. These hubs therefore need to be considered when

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planning a flight schedule. Similarly, the choice of hubs depends on flight schedules, and the
coordination of maintenance between aircrafts depends on a particular aircraft’s flight
schedule. This high level of interdependence means that the creation of maintenance
schedules is highly complex.

Let’s take a look at a very much simplified example of a flight schedule and how it can be
altered in order to coordinate with maintenance requirements. Assume an airline operates at
an airport called Intercity Airport and that it has two aircraft, A and B. The first arrival at Intercity
Airport is aircraft A at 04:20. The first scheduled departure from Intercity Airport is at 5:00.
Let’s assume that the minimum line maintenance time required is 45 minutes. The departure
is scheduled for 40 minutes after the arrival of aircraft A. This means that aircraft A cannot be
used for the first departure at 05:00. As a result, the airline needs to use aircraft B for this
departure. Aircraft A therefore stays at the airport overnight, until it departs on the 05:00 flight
the next morning. This extended period of ground time is known as a “drip” (Jacobs et al.
2012:77). The airline is forced to use two aircraft for the two flights because the flight and
maintenance schedules are not efficiently coordinated. A better option would be to change the
time of the first departure to 05:05. This gives the maintenance engineers enough time to
perform the line maintenance processes on aircraft A before it can then depart at 05:05. The
airline therefore needs only one plane to operate the two flights and its use of its aircraft is
more efficient. (Example adapted from Jacobs et al. 2012:77.)

The example above shows the need for an optimal aircraft rotation process and optimal
maintenance routing so that the minimum ground time can be achieved for each aircraft, thus
maximising utilisation levels and improving operation efficiency (Jacob et al. 2012:77).

7.7 Conclusion

Maintenance is a very important part of the aviation industry. Adequate maintenance is

essential to the safe, efficient and reliable operation of an airline. It involves so much more
than just fixing faulty parts – inventory management, human resources management, financial
constraints, time constraints and coordination of schedules with flight routes and aircraft
rotations all add to the complexity of the maintenance programme. In order to manage all of
these parts efficiently, airlines use advanced software systems and, in some instances,
specialist firms to which they outsource the process. It is important that, as a transport
economist, you understand the maintenance process, the importance of it, and the various

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components that need to be considered in order to plan and manage the process as efficiently
as possible.

HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW?

Go to the Self-Assessment tool on myUnisa and do the self-assessments for learning unit
7. This will give you an indication whether you understand the content of this unit.

7.8 Bibliography

7.8.1 Recommended Reading

Bazargan, M. (2012) Airline Operations and Scheduling. 2nd Edition. United Kingdom:
Ashgate Publishing Ltd.

Jardine, A., Tsang, A. (2013) Maintenance, Replacement and Reliability. 2nd Edition. United
States: CRC Press.

Samaranayake, P., Kiridena, S. (2012) Aircraft maintenance planning and scheduling: an

integrated framework. Journal of Quality in Maintenance Engineering. Vol. 18 Issue 4.
[Online] Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/13552511211281598 [3 May 2016].

7.8.2 References

Ackert, S.P. (2010) Basics of Aircraft Maintenance Programs for Financiers. [Online]
Available at:
http://www.aircraftmonitor.com/uploads/1/5/9/9/15993320/basics_of_aircraft_maintenan
ce_programs_for_financiers___v1.pdf [4 May 2016].

Bazargan, M. (2012) Airline Operations and Scheduling. 2nd Edition. United Kingdom:
Ashgate Publishing Ltd.

Jacobs, T.L., Garrow, L.A., Lohatepanont, M., Koppelman, F.S., Coldren, G.M., Purnomo, H.
(2012) Airline Planning and Schedule Development. Chapter 2. [Online] Available at:
http://docplayer.net/8674492-Chapter-2-airline-planning-and-scheduledevelopment.html
[4 May 2016].

JakoeT, F. (2009) A safety culture survey amongst aircraft maintenance engineers at a

leading airline in South Africa. Unpublished research report. University of Stellenbosch.
[Online] Available at: http://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/959 [3 May 2016].

Jardine, A., Tsang, A. (2013) Maintenance, Replacement and Reliability. 2nd Edition. United
States: CRC Press.

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Mangla, I.S. (2015) Southwest Airlines Maintenance Snafu Raises Safety Concerns.
International Business Times. [Online] Available at:
http://www.ibtimes.com/southwestairlines-maintenance-snafu-raises-safety-concerns-
1828478 [4 May 2016].

Mcfadden, M., Worrells, D.S. (2012) Global Outsourcing of Aircraft Maintenance. Journal of
Aviation Technology and Engineering. [Online] Available at:
http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1039&context=jate [5 May 2016].

Mike (2014) Aircraft Maintenance – Line, Base and Defects. Airline Basics. [Online] Available
at: http://airlinebasics.com/aircraft-maintenance-line-base-and-defects/ [4 May 2016].

SamaranayakE, P., Kiridena, S. (2012) Aircraft maintenance planning and scheduling: an

integrated framework. Journal of Quality in Maintenance Engineering. Vol. 18 Issue 4.
[Online] Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/13552511211281598 [3 May 2016].

Wipro (2013) Aircraft Maintenance Forecasting. [Online] Available at:

http://www.wipro.com/documents/aircraft-maintenance-forecasting.pdf [4
May 2016].

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