ideas about maintenance

English Boards Suggestions and Ideas
1

Recent, AS only provides maintenance companies to handle the maintenance work. Maybe it will be a better idea to have our own mechanics to fix our plane. However, before talking about having our own mechanics, i would like to talk about the problems of recent system.

Now, the maintenance categories are accounted as number of types of planes in an airline, but it's not totally true. If i fix 737s only in CGK, and 320s in DPS, there is no reason i need to have two categories for the whole airline because i do not need to have two groups of maintenance groups with different licences fixing my plane in each airport. The way counting the number of maintenance categories should be number of types of planes per airport, instead of per airline. That's the reason in the real world some airlines have different base for different planes. You can barely see ANA 787 in Narita, because they are mostly operated from Tokyo International. For JAL, it's directly opposite. It will also help when we can have our own maintenance groups. 

If we can have our own maintenance group, i think it can work in this way:

1. operating our own hangars and maintenance groups in different airports. Each maintenance fixes one categories. Different maintenance groups can stay in one hangar, but the size of hangar determines the number of aircraft can be fixed in any given time. It should be different from the system of private terminals. You can have a hangar fixing one plane at any given time but is used 24 hours and fixed 12 planes; You can also have a hangar fixing 12 planes in two hours but only operate during those two hours. It's obvious that you only need a small hangar for the first situation, but a large hangar for the second situation.  The total workload should not affect the size of hangar, but it may affect the number of employees because you may need to have several shifts for the first situation.

2. If our own maintenance group cannot handle all the work, we should sign contracts with AS maintenance groups. We may have our mechanics to fix all the 737s, but a AS  maintenance company to fix all other planes. Of course, if our own mechanics cannot fix all 737s in the fleets, AS company will fix those planes. 

3. categories in each airport: it will be simple to determine the number of categories in each airport: it is just calculate how many types of planes will stay in that airport for more than two hours and need to be repaired. Technically, we should be able have planes just sitting in an airport without any maintenance works, but this may even affect the flight schedule system. 

4. Introducing private maintenance companies. This will be different from the terminal contracts; all the private maintenance group need to list the free time and the types of aircraft it can fixed. 

I hope this idea will be considered.

Leo (TWAAir)

Aero Southern

2

SAS does this IRL, they have A320s at Copehagen and 737s at Oslo and Stockholm. I would like this too as then I can have E-Jets based at BKI and KCH and have A320s based at KUL. E-jets would ONLY have maintenace time at BKI and KUL and A320s only at KUL.

3

To best take advantage of waves and make wave scheduling as tight as possible, a majority of maintenance is done at outstations at the moment (time gaps in schedule). For this reason it’s clear I do not agree with maintenance being done only in one single place, instead as currently being done anywhere with a 2 hour window. Implementing that would wreak havoc into my scheduling.

4

To best take advantage of waves and make wave scheduling as tight as possible, a majority of maintenance is done at outstations at the moment (time gaps in schedule). For this reason it's clear I do not agree with maintenance being done only in one single place, instead as currently being done anywhere with a 2 hour window. Implementing that would wreak havoc into my scheduling.

I understand players who mainly use wave scheduling will against this idea. However, i did not say you need to use your own maintenance group. i just hope we can an additional feature in maintenance. You can still choose AS maintenance group to do your work in all airports. i didn't say you can only use one airport for maintenance. If you are fixing your aircraft in other airports, you can use AS groups to fix all your planes. In fact, your cost won't change at all when this feature is applied. the only thing might change is your competitor who is not using wave scheduling will save some money. 

it's more realistic to be able to have your own people fixing your planes. i believe this method is used by most of major airlines in the real world.

5

it's more realistic to be able to have your own people fixing your planes. i believe this method is used by most of major airlines in the real world.

For simple checks, yes. But most heavier checks are done by specialized MRO facilities that are in majority not affiliated with airlines at all.

http://aviationweek.com/mro/aviation-week-ranks-biggest-airframe-mros

http://www.airlineupdate.com/content_subscription/mro/country_index.htm