Intelligence: News

Spares+Pay-by-the-Hour Support Program is Money-Maker for BAE Regional Aircraft

BAE Systems Regional Aircraft of the UK has been gaining great strength in its MRO program supporting its world-wide fleet of types manufactured by the company. This has been coupled in recent years with spares leasing, maintenance cost-per-hour programs and aircraft modification and upgrading schemes. To these can be added passenger-to-freighter conversion and aircraft leasing programs, which all contributed to business worth some $350 million in 2006. All of this supporting work, combined with the generation of new aircraft leasing business, has proved highly profitable for this division of BAE Systems, which stopped making civil aircraft several years ago.

The types in question, BAe 146, Avro RJ, ATP and Jetstream 31/32 and 41, fell into the regional aircraft category and thus became the responsibility of BAE Systems Regional Aircraft. In total, this fleet of types eligible for support numbers more than 400 aircraft, which is expected to provide operators — and BAE Regional — with good business for some years to come. In particular, the parts and spares pay-by-the-hour programs have been a demonstrable success, with 51 aircraft added to the program in 2005 generating business worth $75 million; in 2006 new business generated was $50 million; and the year- end expectation for 2007 was that 50 aircraft would be added worth a further $75 million.

Graham Smith, commercial director of BAE Systems Regional Aircraft, explained this particular program, which goes under the name of JetSpares and MACRO, the former being a generic name for the operation and covers the jet aircraft and MACRO, or "material and component repair and overhaul" relates to the turboprop types. "This represents almost 50 percent of our support business now, with 212 aircraft in the program operated by some 27 airlines. It’s a combination of placing inventory on site with operators, providing full rotable repair and overhaul service of all the components on the aircraft, and then providing exchange support on top of the rotable pool that we’ve got on site. We’re talking about airframes only of course, as this doesn’t apply to engines or undercarriages," Smith said.

"In the cost-by-the-hour program operators can have a rate for flight-hour that includes the inventory, while some operators prefer to lease the inventory and then pay a rate per flying-hour for the rotables repair and overhaul," he continued. "The whole scheme is flexible as it’s customized for the operator. Most operators actually go for the all-inclusive rate per flying-hour."

Elaborating on the success of the program, Smith noted that every operator leasing aircraft from BAE Regional now signs up for the JetSpares/MACRO package, "Which means that 98 percent of our aircraft leasing customers are on the program. Regarding spares sales, operators can buy parts from us also if they are inclined. This scheme replaces rotables with consumable expendables, and for those operators that don’t go on to the rate per-flying-hour program, we offer a unit exchange program, where operators can have an ad hoc unit exchange."

While much support business for BAE Regional came in the past from the USA, where many BAe 146s, RJs and Jetstreams were sold, this has diminished as operators have replaced their fleets or left the operational scene, and Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa and increasingly Latin America, are now the focus of attention. "While the JetSpares concept was introduced some years ago, the business really took off some two or three years ago, and we’re developing it further," said Smith, adding that the program now has 20 million flights hours of experience behind it.

Enhancements are being made, the latest being a major upgrade of the flight management system on the 146 and RJ series with the installation of the Honeywell GNS-XLS system to allow compliance for precision area navigation (PRNAV) operations. This falls under the heading of modifications. For those on the JetSpares program further innovations are being offered, the latest being the facility for operators to call up parts from BAE Regional on the Internet if desired.

JetSpares modifications, it should be explained, is a separate part of the business to aircraft conversions, a business similarly profitable and growing in intensity as a growing number of operators respond to the concept of converting former regional passenger aircraft to freighters. This has already been done successfully with the ATP aircraft (40 aircraft converted), has been done for the BAe 146 (29 converted) and is now the subject of a program for the little Jetstream 41, which is expected to convert well to a 3.5-ton freighter. Romanian companies have been strongly involved in this conversion work for BAE Regional, including Romaero at Bucharest, together with Aerostar at Bacau and Avione Craiova, and a rejuvenation of the 146QT (Quiet Trader) program is expected to further this involvement on the 12-ton aircraft.

Aircraft leasing, a big and integral part of the whole support program, becomes more important annually as more customers are found. Last year BAE Regional gained leasing contracts with operators for 131 aircraft representing $209 million-worth of business, most of these customers, as noted earlier, signing up to the JetSpares/MACRO programs. — By Roy Allen

New AirPl@n Program Drops Hangar Time

Airbus’ newest automated maintenance program is cutting the number of days lost to aircraft sitting in hangars for scheduled maintenance.

The first airline to adopt Airbus’s new AirPl@n maintenance program has reduced its aircraft down time by roughly 75 percent, according to Joe Miller, director of maintenance and engineering for USA3000.

In an "apples-to-apples" comparison, Miller stated that the airline had 80 days of "aircraft-in-hangar time" in the first six months of 2005 and 172 days for the same period in 2006, for an average of 126 days of hangar time. This compared to only 31 days for the first six months of 2007, following adoption of the AirPl@n maintenance planning data services in early 2007, adding it to the AIRMAN aircraft analysis program it was already using. Both AirPl@n and AIRMAN plug into AirN@v program provided by Airbus for operators of its jetliners.

USA3000 operates Airbus A320-200s throughout the Midwest and Eastern United States, the Caribbean and Mexico, primarily serving the vacation tour package industry.

AirPl@n is the newest of Airbus’ maintenance programs allowing operators to tie into the AirN@v database, designed to increase aircraft availability while decreasing operating costs. Essentially it provides four main airline maintenance processes: program customization, planning definition, job cards production, and continuous progress and planning improvement. AIRMAN is a real-time on-board analysis and communication system.

AirPl@n takes the Maintenance Planning Document (MPD) as a source document for maintenance tasks, then uses the Maintenance Task Operating Plan (MTOP) to allocate the tasks into specific events. A work package then provides ready to use forms that are stamped to show when scheduled maintenance tasks are completed. A Resource Provision Data (RPD) section provides a list of consumables and expendables for each task, with a job card produced to provide procedures, parts, illustrations, and any other requirements automatically pulled from the Aircraft Maintenance Manual (AMM).

Use of the AirPl@n program for task planning and completion greatly reduces what had been a heavy labor intensive operation, Miller said. "With regards to AirPl@n, we have 12 aircraft and I have a staff of three planning people — a manager and two planners. It has allowed us to reduce the traditional planning group by a number of people who would normally be pulling job cards, printing job cards and putting work packages together. We’ve been able to automate the process all the way through to the job card production."

Miller said that where it could take two hours to manually pull up the appropriate job cards from the AMM, "it is now done in 20 seconds using AirPl@n to reach out to AirN@v to pull the cards."

One thing AirPl@n does not do is track aircraft hours and cycles for scheduling requirements. "So we have a [MIRO Technologies] program called AuRA that tracks the hours and cycles automatically," Miller said. "The aircraft reports those via ARINC directly into the system." So if an aircraft is being scheduled to go into the hangar for maintenance, "I can go into AuRA and give it the criteria to do everything that’s due for a two-month period from the time I go into the hangar. AuRA will go look for the list of tasks based on the current utilization of that aircraft that will fall due within two months. We then take that file and export it as an Excel document or file, then import it into AirPl@n. AirPl@n looks at the Excel file and goes out and finds all the tasks that are in our package. It then brings all those cards together, grouping it into one electronic package that we then print off locally."

While USA3000 does its own line maintenance at various bases, heavy maintenance is contracted out to Empire Aero Center in Rome, N.Y.; Aeroframe Services in Lake Charles, La.; and Air Canada Technical Services in Winnipeg, Canada. It has also recently signed an agreement with United Services at Chicago’s O’Hare "for basic hangar maintenance, such as replacing a collective value that requires a gear swing," Miller said.

Once AirPl@n has formed the required package for an aircraft’s scheduled maintenance, it is sent to the appropriate contractor who downloads it and prints it off, he said.

AirPl@n is a commercial product that can be added to an airline’s maintenance program as needed, according to Airbus. Herbert Dehaese, Airbus’ head of sales and marketing, flight and ground information services, said that AirPl@n was developed so that it could be customized to each airline’s planning concepts and requirements.

"The key is to reduce all the checks to an equalized system where everything is done within the needs and capabilities of the airline. It is a customized and tailor-made suit. If an airline needs all of its [maintenance] work done on the weekend, it will do that." — By Douglas Nelms