Boeing has awarded Lufthansa Technik a contract for sustainment services for the Royal New Zealand Air Force’s (RNZAF) future fleet of four P-8A aircraft that will leverage commercial capabilities to improve readiness rates.
The contract is to provide Lufthansa Technik’s Total Component Support (TCS), a comprehensive component services program for the 737 covering more than 400 commercial common parts included in the configuration of the P-8A, a military derivative of the popular airliner. The group believes leveraging the 737 commercial market in support of P-8A international customers will allow smaller fleets easier access to necessary global supply chain inventory from the more than 4,000 737 aircraft operating today.
“Our collaboration with Lufthansa Technik is a strong example of how industry can work together to solve customer challenges and maintain high readiness rates,” said Torbjorn (Turbo) Sjogren, Boeing vice president and general manager, government services. “Our goal is to expand service offerings from a strategic German industry partner for additional P-8A customers to benefit.”
The TCS program provided by Lufthansa Technik allows the RNZAF to reduce investment in commercial common parts and improve aircraft readiness through access to the German company’s maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) global supply chain.
Boeing and Lufthansa Technik signed a strategic Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in 2021 to support Germany’s P-8A Poseidon fleet. The MOU expanded to a three-party agreement with ESG Elektroniksystem und Logistik in 2022.
“Lufthansa Technik is a long-standing partner with a long history of supporting Boeing aircraft around the world,” said Dr. Michael Haidinger, president of Boeing in Germany. “This new contract is a clear demonstration of our commitment to German industry and how we partner across the Atlantic and globally, shaping meaningful partnerships that ensure continued economic and industrial growth in Germany.”
Under Boeing’s Performance-Based Logistics (PBL) program, Lufthansa Technik also provides hardware support to the Italian fleet of Boeing KC-767A tankers and has facilitated outstanding aircraft availability for the Italian Air Force.
“As a renowned expert for Special Mission aircraft and a leading maintenance, repair and overhaul provider with decades of experience in servicing commercial Boeing 737s, we are delighted to soon start servicing New Zealand’s Poseidon fleet. The strong partnership with Boeing enables us to offer the best possible service level over the entire life cycle of the aircraft,” said Michael von Puttkamer, vice president special aircraft services at Lufthansa Technik.
In July 2018, the government of New Zealand announced the purchase of four P-8A Poseidon aircraft to replace their aging fleet of P-3K2 maritime patrol aircraft. The first P-8A to New Zealand was delivered December 2022, with three remaining aircraft to be delivered in 2023.
Deployed around the world with 155 aircraft delivered or in service, the P-8A is used for global anti-submarine warfare, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and search-and-rescue operations.
The Av8 Group has added a second CMMS (coordinate measuring machine system) to their manufacturing process of PMA parts, providing a more efficient measure of larger parts which they say will increase the efficiency and value of its landing gear overhaul process.
The new CMMS measures with an accuracy of up to one ten-thousandth of an inch (less than a human hair). Both CMMSs are computer driven, which efficiently measures multiple parts at a time, while also being run unattended. This is the company’s second similar in-house machine and doubles the capacity of work that can be completed. This new machine is also faster, thus tripling the throughput of inspected parts overall.
Av8 says they produce thousands of parts every year and they all must pass through the CMMS, as the FAA requires 100% of the parts to be inspected under Av8’s current PMA authority.
“Av8’s ultimate mission is to overhaul landing gear as quickly and as efficiently as possible while maintaining unmatched value to our customers. We are constantly looking for additional ways to vertically integrate all operations currently done by outside sources. We plan on bringing grinding and machining operations in house very soon as well. This will be an ongoing effort for the company in the foreseeable future,” said Yoel Arnoni, CEO.
flydocs announced an extended agreement with Gulf Air. Under the five-year renewal, flydocs will continue to support Gulf Air with digital records management software for its fleet of over 35 aircraft.
Gulf Air and flydocs have had a long-standing partnership for five years, where flydocs has been providing a software service to support Gulf Air to manage its assets and lease returns. Gulf Air recently selected the world-leading engineering and maintenance MRO and will be looking to gain improvements in aircraft compliance management, utilizing the advanced features and interfaces available in the flydocs platform.
Commenting on the partnership, André Fischer, chief executive officer, flydocs said, “We are delighted to reaffirm our strong relationship with Gulf Air, which is a testimony to delivering advanced software, technical expertise, and exceptional support to our clients. In the last few years, our robust relationship has strengthened due to our aligned values and a strong drive to innovate the aviation industry. The unique digital-led solution we offer to our customers provides them with a seamless experience on our core records management platform. It is a privilege to be chosen as their asset solution partner of choice as that re-establishes their faith in us. We look forward to working with them to build upon the momentum we’ve developed so far and continue growing this collaborative relationship with Gulf Air.”
Captain Waleed Al-Alawi, chief executive officer, Gulf Air said, “Gulf Air is excited about the long-term continuation of our partnership with flydocs. Our technical and professional capabilities are a reflection of the success of our ‘boutique’ strategy and the ongoing enhancements to products and services. We’re committed to delivering the best information technology solutions to enhance and strengthen our business as we constantly work with the latest technologies to provide the best services to our customers, which is also why we chose flydocs. Since we migrated to a new engineering and maintenance MRO, this long-term arrangement with flydocs adds enormous value as we will benefit from the digital capabilities they provide to drive savings in both our cost and operational efficiencies.”
PTS Aviation marked its first year under StandardAero ownership with a flurry of new CFM56-7B and -5B engine transactions. PTS Aviation was acquired by StandardAero in December 2021. Founded in 1995, PTS Aviation has over 150 years of combined aviation management experience and significant expertise buying, leasing and selling engines, modules and high-quality used serviceable material (USM).
PTS Aviation’s latest engine transactions, all completed during the month of December, include the sale of a CFM56-7B26 engine to a third-party North American MRO; the sale of a CFM56-7B26 engine to a European customer, for delivery in January 2023; and the sale of a CFM56-5B4 to a North American engine lessor.
“These latest engine transactions cap off a busy first year for the PTS Aviation team under the ownership of StandardAero,” said David Blackburn, senior vice president – asset leasing and trading for PTS Aviation. “We have had great success this year in leveraging our engine leasing and USM services in support of StandardAero’s own CFM56-7B MRO capabilities in order to meet the needs of the global customer base, and look forward to further expanding these activities in 2023 as StandardAero introduces its new CFM56-7B hospital shop and test cell capabilities in Dallas-Fort Worth.”
PTS Aviation is headquartered in Miramar, FL, and is a supplier of high-quality serviceable engines and used serviceable material, exclusively targeting the CFM56-3B/C, -5A/B, and -7B engine market. StandardAero is an OEM-authorized independent MRO provider and a CFM International partner supporting the CFM56-7B from its 162,000 square-foot facility in Winnipeg, MB, Canada.
AAR has expanded its partnership with Ontic by signing a military customer support distribution contract extension and a new long-term global commercial distribution agreement.
Under the military customer support distribution contract extension, AAR will continue to provide supply chain solutions, including warehousing, logistics, and supply chain management, for Ontic’s Cheltenham MRO. AAR will also continue to deliver global distribution services, including sales and international government customer support of electronic assemblies, flight control units, gyroscopes, and altimeters, for military operators. This comprehensive supply chain agreement primarily focuses on Western and European platforms and serves F-15, F-16, Hawk, and Sea King aircraft, which are experiencing an increased operational tempo.
“Every day, our military customers across the world depend on Ontic parts to execute their missions effectively. By extending our agreement with AAR, we are ensuring that our valued customers continue to have access to the parts they need when they need them,” said Eric Lopes, Ontic’s general manager. “Ontic continues investing in solving some of the industry’s biggest challenges, and our partnership with AAR serves that priority.”
AAR will also become Ontic’s global exclusive OEM product distributor for the Twin Commander and Metro Merlin airframes. This new agreement increases AAR’s product offerings for commercial customers and provides Ontic’s customer base with lead time compression and elevated service levels.
“AAR is looking forward to working with Ontic’s commercial customers to provide excellent service, and we will uphold that commitment through the life of the Twin Commander and Metro Merlin airframes,” said Eric Young, AAR’s vice president of OEM Solutions. “We are also honored to be selected to continue providing long-term operational and cost-effective solutions to Ontic’s global MRO and aftermarket customers.”
United Airlines has named Maria Deacon senior vice president of technical operations, overseeing the carrier’s maintenance operations, ground service equipment and facilities maintenance, supply chain, technical services, and planning and strategy. Deacon will also shape the continued growth and investment in United’s Calibrate apprenticeship program, helping the airline expand and diversify its next generation of maintenance employees.
Most recently, Deacon served as GE Aerospace’s general manager of maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO). In her new role at the airline, Deacon will report to United’s Greg Hart, executive vice president and chief growth officer.
“Our ambitious United Next growth strategy provides a remarkable opportunity to leverage Maria’s unique skillset,” said Hart. “In her nearly 25 years at GE, she established an impressive record of supply chain and operational successes, and her approach to team culture has driven exceptionally high levels of accountability and execution that drove operational excellence.”
At the helm of GE Aerospace’s extended MRO network, Deacon was responsible for delivering revenue across a mix of more than two dozen global GE and partner sites worldwide. As general manager of CFM Services at GE, she managed the financial aspects of the largest in-service fleet in commercial aviation and the joint venture relationship for all CFM and LEAP engine services. In her role as general manager of supply chain at GE, Deacon led the ramp up of critical helicopter, fighter jet engines and spare parts for U.S. military operations among other key responsibilities.
Deacon holds a CPA from the University of Cardiff in Wales, U.K., and is a certified investment management accountant.
HAECO Xiamen participated in a ground breaking ceremony recently to commence the construction of its new aircraft maintenance facility at Xiamen Xiang’an International Airport.
Currently based at Xiamen Gaoqi International Airport, HAECO Xiamen will relocate to the new airport to build the new hangar. Covering a total area of 537,300 square meters, including a construction area of 292,300 square meters and an apron area of 284,000 square meters, 18 new buildings will be constructed to include apron engineering, engine test bays, utility tunnel, aviation fuel supply and other outdoor works.
The company says their new maintenance facility will combine innovation, green design and advanced technology to achieve optimum energy utilization and operational efficiency. There will be 12 wide-body and six narrow-body maintenance bays as well as two separate painting bays to provide flexible parking for multiple aircraft types and different maintenance needs. Once the construction is complete, HAECO Xiamen will be the largest single span aircraft maintenance hangar in the world.
The construction project has been designed from the outset to optimize operational efficiency and maximize space utilization, helping to reduce aircraft maintenance turnaround times and improve punctuality to meet its customers’ maintenance schedules. The facility uses a center-axle design which connects the hangars and ancillary buildings, facilitating logistics management and resource sharing. The new maintenance facility will also feature state-of-the-art green measures including solar power, intelligent building management systems, intelligent lighting controls, water storage and air conditioning systems, as well as advanced wastewater and air treatment, with the goal of achieving gold certification under the LEED-NC (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for New Construction) rating system.
HAECO Xiamen says the new maintenance facility embodies their values of “putting safety first while delivering high quality products and services to its customers.” The group says it strongly believes in investing in innovative technology to bring long-term benefits to its stakeholders as well as fulfilling its social responsibility to the environment and the community while operating its business. As the largest single investment by the HAECO Group since its inception, it says the project demonstrates HAECO’s confidence in its continued investment in the Chinese mainland and its determination to contribute to the development of the region’s aviation industry through continuous business expansion.
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has granted Lufthansa Technik a Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) that officially paves the way for the series modification of two Boeing 777 variants with the fuel-saving AeroSHARK riblet films. Through the STC, the subfleet-wide roll-out of this sustainability technology, developed jointly by Lufthansa Technik and BASF, can now commence at the launch customers Lufthansa Cargo and Swiss International Air Lines (SWISS). The next modification layovers in Frankfurt and Zurich are already scheduled for early January.
AeroSHARK reduces the frictional resistance of the aircraft skin by using a special surface structure of microscopic ribs, the companies have dubbed “riblets”. As a result, the fuel consumption and CO2 emissions are reduced by around one percent. For each Boeing 777-300ER operated by SWISS, this means annual savings of around 400 tons of kerosene and more than 1,200 tons of carbon dioxide. The slightly shorter Boeing 777F saves around 370 tons of fuel and 1,170 tons of CO2 each year.
A first AeroSHARK-equipped Boeing 777-300ER of the Swiss airline (HB-JNH), which also completed the flight test program for the now-received certification, had already begun daily operations in October using a temporary “Permit-to-Fly” from the Swiss Federal Office of Civil Aviation (FOCA) that was valid for this single aircraft only. The STC issued by EASA now allows Lufthansa Technik to serially apply the nature-inspired riblet films to any Boeing 777-300ER and 777F aircraft.
The AeroSHARK modification of HB-JNH already began at the end of August and culminated in STC flights with EASA on September 8 and 9. During these flights, detailed proof had to be provided that the AeroSHARK modification had no negative impact on the operational safety and handling of the Boeing 777. The STC flight was followed by several weeks of evaluation of the collected data and other documents, such as measured values from flow simulations. After recently completing its review of all submitted documents, EASA finally granted the STC.
“The approval of AeroSHARK for the Boeing 777 variants is an important step in the distribution of this new technology for more sustainability in air transport,” said Soeren Stark, chief executive officer of Lufthansa Technik. “With our partner BASF, we can now support our customers in making entire subfleets more climate-friendly. Moreover, we intend to realize the use of the new technology for further aircraft types. We are the only MRO company in the world to offer such solutions to reduce fuel consumption and CO2 emissions for commercial aircraft.”
“Realizing such a project is only possible through cooperation in partnership and great trust in each other’s expertise. Together, we have succeeded in developing a tailor-made solution that combines economic action and sustainability in equal measure,” explained Dr. Uta Holzenkamp, head of BASF’s Coatings division, also responsible for functional films. “With the Novaflex Sharkskin functional film, we are helping our customers to achieve their individual sustainability goals and in this way make aviation measurably more environmentally friendly.”
SWISS and Lufthansa Cargo will successively equip all twelve of their 777-300ERs and eleven 777Fs with AeroSHARK. They will be the first passenger and cargo airlines worldwide to optimize a complete subfleet with the riblet films. Once all Boeing 777s at Lufthansa Cargo and SWISS have received their AeroSHARK modification, they predict it will reduce the Lufthansa Group’s carbon footprint by more than 25,000 tons annually.
Lufthansa Technik and BASF intend to consistently develop AeroSHARK further for additional aircraft types and larger surfaces, so that in the future they can support airlines around the world in achieving their emissions targets. In initial model calculations, the sharkskin technology in its maximum expansion stage could even avoid CO2 emissions on the scale of up to three percent.
AAR announced that John M. Holmes, president and chief executive officer of AAR, has been named chairman of the board of directors following the retirement of David P. Storch, the company’s chairman for 18 years. Holmes will continue as president and chief executive officer of the company.
Holmes joined AAR in 2001 as director of mergers and acquisitions. In 2003, Holmes moved into operations, becoming general manager of AAR’s parts supply business and progressively assuming responsibility of other businesses before being appointed as president and chief operating officer in 2017. In 2018, he was named president and chief executive officer of AAR, the third since the company’s founding in 1955.
Under Holmes’s leadership, AAR has achieved growth in sales and profitability, while navigating the company through the COVID-19 pandemic, the company says. As chairman, Holmes will focus on strategies to drive continued growth.
Storch, the second of the company’s only three CEOs, has served as a member of the board since 1989 and as chairman of the board of AAR since 2005. He retired as chief executive officer in 2018. Under Storch’s leadership, the company grew to the leading independent provider of aviation services globally.
An aircraft is a collection of parts all destined to be replaced, and the cost to airlines of stocking spare for those parts can run into the millions of dollars. This is why many airlines (and other commercial operators) take part in ‘spare parts pooling’, to reduce the expense of keeping everything they need in inventory without compromising their ability to repair aircraft as needed.
“Pooling allows airlines to have instant access to components for their aircraft for quick turnaround times, resulting in less Aircraft on Ground (AOG) time,” said Christopher Solomon, general manager of Certified Aviation Services, an independent MRO.
Parts Pooling Primer
The concept of spare parts pooling — aka aircraft component pooling or contracted components pooling — is as simple as it is brilliant.
“Parts pooling is simply stockpiling aircraft components in one central location that are needed by different operators, for the purpose of sharing the reduced cost while ensuring quality and availability,” said Mike Cazaz. He is CEO of Werner Aero, which is an asset management and aftermarket supplier of logistical solutions to airlines, MROs, and aircraft leasing companies. “You take a bunch of parts, put them in a centralized location for ease in logistics and you sign up airlines to utilize these parts on an as-needed basis, for a fee.”
In exchange for that fee, companies such as Werner Aero serve as the parts collector, warehouse and distribution center. “A ‘pool provider’ such as ourselves is responsible for maintaining the pool level and dispatching the parts to the airline,” Cazaz said. “Let’s say an airline needs a generator. If they’re under contract with us, we will send them a generator that is certified and ready to be installed in the aircraft. In exchange, the airline will send us the ‘bad unit’ from the aircraft. We will manage the repair/overhaul of that unit and ensure that it goes into our pool for someone else.”
When trouble occurs, the parts provider is ready to help. “In the case of an AOG (Aircraft on Ground), an airline identifies the faulty component and directly reports it to its contracted components pool provider, usually by a web suite, phone or by email,” said Tobias Heiling, head of product sales for aircraft component services with the major MRO, Lufthansa Technik. “The provider then quickly checks its pool inventory for serviceable components of the required type and immediately starts the required logistics process — including customs clearance — for delivering this identical, ‘fresh’ and serviceable component from one of its pools to the location of the customer aircraft. There, it is installed as quickly as possible in order to get the aircraft airborne again.”
The pool manager doesn’t have to be a third-party provider. In some instances, “Two or more airlines agree on a requirement of candidate part numbers to stock at a common station,” said Dean Wood, president/CEO of Aviation Concepts, a supplier of aircraft replacement parts and inventory management services. “Rather than each airline allocating its own identical set of assets to this station, which would cause multiple sets of the same costly assets to be tied up, they agree that one airline will be the ‘Pool Provider’ at this station and the others will join the Pool Agreement, and share in the parts as needed.”
Lufthansa Technik is also a spare parts provider, and a very big one at that. “We operate one of the largest aircraft component pools in the world, with currently 2.3 billion U.S. dollars’ worth of components in our 15 worldwide component stocks on three continents,” Heiling said. “Sophisticated and flexible transport solutions provided through our own global logistics provider, Lufthansa Technik Logistik Services (LTLS), ensure that every component needed reaches our customers’ aircraft in the shortest possible time, if necessary even by an onboard courier booked on the next available flight. We moreover employ a dedicated AOG support team that is available 24/7 in order to provide assistance to our customers from the incoming call until their aircraft is finally back in the air.”
AAR Corporation (AAR) is another global MRO that manages a large spare parts pool that is linked to aircraft servicing, supporting about a thousand aircraft on average every day. “In its simplest form, airlines enter into long-term support agreements with pool and repair providers like AAR and the pool support comes bundled with a repair-by-the-hour arrangement,” said Chris Feddes, AAR’s senior vice president of commercial programs. This being said, the process is the same: “By entering into that arrangement an airline is effectively agreeing to use components that have operated on other airlines’ aircraft,” Feddes said. “They give you the unserviceable part, you repair it, put it back on your shelf, and ‘rinse and repeat’ that process a few thousand times a year for every customer.”
The Many Benefits of Parts Pooling
The practice of spare parts pooling offers a range of benefits to airlines and other aircraft operators.
“The first benefit is no capital expenditure on parts,” said Cazaz. “You don’t spend any money upfront. Someone has spent the money; belonging to the pool just costs you whatever the monthly fees are.”
Paying a known monthly fee rather than buying parts and storing parts directly, which can be an unpredictable expense in AOG situations, is the second big bonus. “Given that the monthly pool fee is fixed, airlines can better predict their operating costs,” Cazaz said. “And when you don’t have to spend money owning a large parts inventory, you can improve your cash flow as an airline.”
“Probably the single biggest thing they get is fixed predictable costs of component maintenance and pool access so they get typically a rate per hour for repair and a cost per month per aircraft, or maybe a rate per hour for pool access,” Feddes said. “So they have a high degree of certainty about what their costs are going to be every period. They typically realize lower long-term costs. By participating in a pool the operator benefits from the lower investment per aircraft that is needed to support a large fleet than you would get if you had a smaller fleet. You had to buy all of your own parts.”
This level of predictability makes it easier for airlines to plan and manage their maintenance budgets for the long-term, which is no small deal in an industry that is plagued by economic uncertainties; the most recent being COVID-19. This is why “Pooling is an integral part of many airlines’ asset management decisions,” said Wood. “There are many capital investments which can be avoided thanks to pooling, plus specific situations where airlines should not simply buy spares outright and add them to already inflated inventories. Pooling also controls today’s out-of-pocket expenses, does not directly affect the purchasing budget and takes many years to amortize or realize the full outright cost expenditure of parts (compared to buying and warehousing them outright).”
The fourth major benefit of parts pooling — and it could be argued that this one should be closer to the top of the list — is that pool providers have to manage the supply chain issues associated with finding, stocking, shipping and repairing parts, rather than the airlines themselves. Given the continuing chaos affecting the world’s supply chain in the wake of COVID, this is no small thing.
“As a pool provider, we manage the risk of the supply chain itself,” said Cazaz. “So if we guarantee turnaround time and there’s a problem with the supply chain, it’s up to us to perform for sure. The airline can count on the delivery time. If we guarantee that a part will be dispatched within 48 hours, they know that they don’t have to worry.”
“The risk of having the right component delivered to the right place at the right time is shifted from the airline to the supplier,” Heiling agreed. At the same time, a large spare parts pooling provider such as Lufthansa Technik can achieve “significant economies of scale by bundling the material stocks for numerous customers in a respective region.”
The Price of Admission
Clearly, spare parts pooling is a very smart move for cost-conscious airlines; that is to say all of them. Still, it does cost to join. So what is the actual price tag?
At Werner Aero, “the way it works is — in order to guarantee what we call a Service Performance Level — an airline has to sign up for a minimum of three years and pay a monthly fee to access the pool,” said Cazaz. “The fee is based on two main factors. The first is ‘how many parts am I guaranteeing the airlines per month?’ because this varies from customer to customer. The second is what we call ‘dispatch reliability’: what percentage of reliability, like 90% or 95%, do we have to guarantee dispatch of the parts within an agreed-upon window of time. Some airlines will say, ‘I’m okay with 90%,’ because the rate for 90% will be a bit cheaper than 95%.”
According to Aviation Concept’s Dean Wood, there are several parts pooling payment options to choose from. The longest-standing, most successful model is offered by “the International Airlines Technical Pool (IATP) with its 75-year history,” he said. “The IATP has a simplified process, contract and price structure for its member airlines to use. Basically the annual pool cost is 18% per year of the member-agreed pool value of the part(s). “This pool fee is split between the provider and sharers, so a pool being shared by three airlines only costs 6% per year for the airline to have access to the part, enabling it to avoid a potential AOG, flight delay or cancellation at that station.”
For airlines running on tight budgets, the temptation may exist to avoid the monthly fees of parts pooling by going it alone — ‘getting by’ using a minimal in-house parts inventory and buying what they need when an AOG occurs, with the accompanying amount of prayer required during the current chaotic supply chain situation. But succumbing to this temptation is just not worth the risk: in exchange for their monthly parts pooling fee, “the operator takes no long-term asset value risk on all that inventory. The pool provider takes that,” said Feddes. As well, “they wind up a significantly less complex supplier management operation. Typically, they’re managing just one supplier versus potentially hundreds, so they’ve really outsourced to the repair provider all of their repair cycle management obligations.”
In other words, there is a price of admission to belong to a parts pool. But the price of admission is worth it.
Here To Stay
One thing seems certain in the very uncertain world of aviation: the cost savings, supply guarantees and rapid AOG resolutions provided by spare parts pooling means that this approach to parts management is here to stay.
“At this point, I think pooling is now a permanent fixture of our industry,” Feddes said. “For most carriers, it’s proven itself to be the best way to provide component support to their fleets.”
“Parts pooling has been in the aviation industry for over 40 years,” noted Solomon.”Due to its convenience, we expect this aspect of the industry to continue to grow rapidly.”
A case in point: at Lufthansa Technik, “Total Component Support (TCS) is definitely among the most popular products in our portfolio,” Heiling said. “Today, we are supporting more than 140 airlines on almost all continents with these kinds of services. As many of our customers are seeking flexibility in recovering from the COVID crisis, while still keeping an eye on their cash situation, we expect the popularity of this product to gain further momentum.”
The popularity of this approach is now being driven by digitalization,” he added. “Data-driven digital maintenance platforms such as our AVIATAR can leverage significant benefits for component support offerings. On the one hand, their data analysis capabilities enable services such as Predictive Maintenance, thereby ‘detecting’ parts failures before they occur and initiating timely replacements. On the other hand, these prediction capabilities can also positively impact the parts pools by connecting automated stock optimizations and thus further cost reduction.”
Meanwhile, IATP maintains more than 7000 active parts pools,” said Wood. “The number of pools and items staged is fluid, as seasonal changes of stations served and fleet types fluctuate regularly, so do the spare parts requirements.” Intriguingly, the introduction of the newest generation of long-haul aircraft (i.e., the Airbus A350 and Boeing 787) into airline service is actually reducing the availability of spare parts for pools “due to the heavy reliance on Power-by-Hour (PBH) programs and OEM Gold Care programs for these fleets,” he said. “This tends to leave the airlines owning far less inventory of their own to provide for pooling. [Still], Opportunity does exist here for other suppliers to enter this space and establish pools to support airlines for items not covered or not covered well enough by their current PBH contracts.”
The bottom line: spare parts pooling is good for commercial aircraft operators, the MROs and pool providers who serve them, and the passengers who rely on them. It’s not often that a true ’win-win-win’ business case occurs these days, but this is one of them.
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