Reduces Airlines' Maintenance Costs, Increases
Revenue-Generating Flying Time
Recent improvements to
the scheduled maintenance program for the Boeing 777 promise
to reduce airlines' maintenance costs and increase the time a 777
airplane is in revenue-generating service. By increasing the time
between certain maintenance tasks, the new program reduces
maintenance by more than 400 labor-hours per airplane per year and
gives airlines one more day of service annually for each 777 in
their fleet.
Using industry averages, the reduced maintenance costs and
increased revenue opportunity add more than $100,000 in annual
value to each 777 in operation.
The new program extends the maintenance inspection interval for
zonal tasks, involving such areas as doors, fuselage compartments,
struts, and flight controls, from 25 to 37 months. Under the
previous Maintenance Review Board (MRB) report, an airplane was
pulled out of service for approximately five days to perform
required maintenance checks every 25 months. The addition of 12
months to this maintenance interval provides significant financial
and scheduling opportunities to 777 operators.
"This new interval extension gives our customers an
industry-leading maintenance program while retaining the same
safety and reliability levels inherent in the 777 model," said Jack
Trunnell, director of Maintenance Engineering in Boeing Commercial
Aviation Services.
"This extension not only reduces maintenance costs but also
provides additional revenue opportunities for airlines."
Other tasks that have been escalated in the new maintenance
program include many general inspections, which have increased from
100 to 125 days. The maintenance program improvements are the
result of an eight-month effort by an Industry Steering Committee
(ISC) involving 777 airline operators, Boeing and regulatory
authorities.
"These task additions are a tribute to the data sharing among
operators and fast response by The Boeing Company," said ISC Chair
Tom Edwards, principal engineer at United Airlines.
"Seeing accomplishment intervals increase for a large percentage
of the systems, structures and zonal tasks helps each operator
eliminate the 'non-value added' of doing tasks too early and too
often."
Since August, 777 operators world-wide provided extensive data
to Boeing on the 350 tasks analyzed for the interval escalation.
The new MRB report was approved by the U.S. Federal Aviation
Administration and European Aviation Safety Agency in April, and
resulting Maintenance Program Document (MPD) guidelines will be
published this month.