This paper analyzes the impact of varying downtime and cost of base maintenance checks for aircraft and gives an economic cost-benefit assessment. The reduction of downtimes for scheduled base maintenance checks is complex in terms of technical and logistical aspects. Therefore, the net benefit of such efforts is evaluated to optimize maintenance cost and aircraft availability from an aircraft operator point of view. For this purpose, the cost-benefit model AirTOBS (Aircraft Technology & Operations Benchmark System) is set up. The model is able to capture all economically relevant impacts on aircraft operations and maintenance over the life cycle. AirTOBS follows a discrete event simulation approach for aircraft operation and maintenance to capture time effects. An operator life cycle cost-benefit analysis accounts for costs and benefits. A use case of an Airbus A320 similar aircraft is conducted to show the potential of maintenance downtime reductions in terms of time and cost aspects. It is shown that the potential of a C-Check downtime reduction by 12.5% is worth a C-check cost increase of 10%, depending on various operational and maintenance aspects. Further, a set of ISO curves for constant net-present values of an airline is provided to show the cost increase potential of decreasing C-check downtimes.
展开▼
