Optimization of aircraft utilization by reducing scheduled maintenance downtime

Optimizing of aircraft utilization is very important for an airline. By accumulating more flight hours, direct operating costs per flight hour can be reduced. In this paper, methods of reducing scheduled maintenance downtime of an aircraft are studied. In most airlines, maintenance checks are performed in predetermined intervals and maintenance tasks which are given in maintenance program are performed during these maintenance checks. However this method remains insufficient to prevent earlier accomplishment of maintenance tasks. Due to the rigid structure of maintenance checks, such airlines are subjected to enormous loss of material, man hour etc... In the method improved in this paper, a more flexible structure has been developped to perform the maintenance not only during periodic checks but also whenever the aircraft is on the ground for any reason. In this method, a single task-oriented maintenance concept has been proposed and this concept has been supported by the fuzzy AHP analysis approach [1] which has been developped to facilitate the allocation of labor resources. Therefore a more flexible model has been developped to manage these resources and perform the maintenance in every opportunity when the aircraft is on the ground. In this flexible system all the maintenance tasks are performed on time and losses are eliminated consequently.