Maintenance Category

English Boards Community Support
1

Hi All,

I currently operate a fleet of 60 Aircraft in 3 maintenance category's from London Gatwick, they are:

Dash 8

737

767

I am thinking of starting to aquire 787's instead of 767's to serve a few longer distance destinations, however I am concerned about the maintenance penalty.  What are other players experience of this, have you noticed a large drop in profit when you add a new maintenance category?  Or is it not really noticable?  My airline is Link Airways on Nicosia....

Any opinion is appreciated!

Thanks

Chris

2

Also, 95% of my aircraft are under 5 years old....

3

It is a simple calculation.

For each additional maintenance category your maintenance costs will rise by 15% (for the existing 3 categories)

If your current expenses are 2million/week, then your new maintenance cost for the existing (!) fleet

will be 2,3million/week.

So in other words your new fleet needs to make a weekly profit of at least 300.000 to break even

on the additional maintenance costs for the other airplanes.

In general you need a certain number of airplanes of the new category until you break even.

If you only plan to add one or two airplanes, most times it is better not to expand and use existing types instead.

4

It's simple. You know, the penatly for a 4th maintenance category is 15% - so just have a look at your maintenance costs last business week and calculate your personal penalty in absolute numbers ;)

5

Pretty simple then, thanks!