I have a fleet of B737-400 (14-16 yrs) and prop planes (0-3 yrs). I’m using 'African Maintenance Systems at the moment and prices are forever increasing. Has anyone some advice please[font=“Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif”][size=“1”][color="#333333"].[/color][/size][/font]
Well although african and Helvetic are the most expensive, they def. allow u to provide some more return flights before youre maintenance ratio runs under 100%. I used some less good (and cheap) providers in the beginning, but what i experienced is that if u have some really good routes, its def. more usefull to go with Helvetic or African, as the extra flights adds more money into youre account than it will cost to have a contract with the more expensive company’s.
Try to keep the types in youre fleet as low as possible, because every extra type above 3, will add somewhat like 15% extra mx costs. As an example, in my fleet i only, for now, use the 717 and MD-90, maybe later on MD-80s as these all belong to the same mx catagory, but provide a very wide range of seating configurations (MD-80 like 180, 717 somewhat like 120).
The extra costs don’t count when u own the whole fleet instead of leasing.
In the end, try to get newer planes as the older planes are expensive to maintain+ pax prefer newer planes! (and ofter they are faster to)
Thank you for your help.