Owning or operating an aircraft is a huge investment, the list price of used aircraft are always figures with six zero’s following them, whichever currency you buy in. Aircraft only produce revenue when they are in the air, therefore every second they are on the ground they are costing the operator a huge amount. No pax = no money!
Maintenance is one of those unavoidable downtimes which every operator must endure, but even so, reducing this downtime is the first priority. A,B, C & D checks are a necessary evil in the aviation world, maintenance planning and maintenance review are the first two processes which can reduce time taken by maintenance.
What steps can the operators and the engineers take themselves to help minimize the downtime of any given aircraft? Here are just some examples:
Crunch data to better predict maintenance requirements
Invest in tools and integrate systems
Smarten up your supply chain
Having money tied up in huge pools of spare aircraft parts is a very 1990’s way of managing the supply chain, in these ever changing times, and especially in the post-pandemic global aviation market, operators are looking more to their suppliers and supply chain to help out.
The Used Serviceable Material or USM market is one such way of ticking this part from your list. Operators looking to free themselves of hefty investments in spare parts in favor of smaller inventories look for suppliers offering comprehensive solutions when it comes to material supply.
KG Aircraft Rotables are one such company, based in the UK with locations across the globe, they specialize in rotable component supply for B737 & A320 airliners.
We spoke to Gary Tomkinson, the Global Sales Director for his input into how USM suppliers can help reduce maintenance downtime.
“KGAR has a system which we like to refer to as ‘Smart teardown’ we outsource the teardown of our aircraft at one of our teardown providers, and locate the stock where it is needed globally” Gary said. “We can provide our operator customers with several options when it comes to having inventory readily available” he continues, “we have 24/7 coverage 365 days a year for those customers simply wishing to use our services ad-hoc, or we can provide all manner of lease packs, base packs, consignments – anything which will allow that individual operator to maintain their fleet availability” he added. He finished his comments by adding “USM can assure timely and cost effective running of an airline, supply chain integration is one part of a larger process which is key to giving access to inventory and managing all aspects of material supply, quickly & cost effectively, all whilst reducing aircraft downtime as far as possible”
In the COVID-19 recovery, USM is going to play a huge part in helping operators manage their cash flow more effectively. USM parts can typically cost only 60% – 80 per cent of that charged by the aircraft OEM. In addition, supply chain impacts felt within the OEM are not felt within the USM market, the main barriers to USM parts are trace along with release certification. In the on-going recovery from COVID-19 we see a number of aircraft being retired at a very young age – this lends itself to ensuring an ever reliable supply of components to the market.
