Maintenance costs

English Boards Community Support
1

Have any of you do some calculations about the difference of maintenance cost between new and old planes?

My fleet is formed now mainly by fokker 100 with 20/25 years and I m thinking about to replace all this planes for new Airbus A-318 but I m not sure if it would be a good change from economic point of view (I suppose that it would ve good for the image of the company).

Any opinions? Thanks :wink:

2

Just check the aircraft evaluation tool. It will tell you the difference in maintenance cost per flight.

3

But the results with that tool are only till 24 years, yes?

4

Yes but you can easily determine the cost for even a 30 year old plane, the maintenance cost is set in arithmetic progression. So just get a difference in maintenance cost between a 23 and 24 year old plane, and you can easily calculate 25, 26, even 40 year old plane's cost.

5

Costs for maint are const. for an airframe age of 0-5 years.

They then increase by factor 1.0667 each year.

Consequently, a 20 years old airframe has double the costs of a new one.

6

My maintenance provider is African. Some of the maintenance costs I have for the Fokker 100IGW, with average age 23.8 years.

Salt Lake City - Denver: $2.857

SLC - Houston I: $3,143

SLC - Las Vegas: $2,827

SLC - Cincinatti: $3,017

I don't fly a A318 but do fly with A319 Light. Average age is 0.2 years. I believe the maintenance costs difference between an A318 and A319 isn't that big.  

A319 Light:

Atlanta - Cincinatti: $997

SLC - Cincinatti: $1,128

So there is almost $2,000 more maintenance costs for the Fokker on the route SLC - Cincinatti.

I would consider the CRJ 700 instead of an A318 as replacement for the Fokker 100.

7

You must also look not just on a maintenance cost side, but lease cost side as well. Newer aircraft will be more expensive. In the best case scenario, the reduction in maintenance cost will pay off increase in the lease cost. But in majority of the cases, economic results still prefer older used planes. BUT hey will have much lower image ratings and maybe slower speed will make it unable t achieve a 99 rating. So it's a tradeoff. It is not one size fits all situation. Everything DEPENDS.