Overhaul & Maintenance MRO Blog

Composite Material Shortages Insights

Tim Shumate (left photo), marketing manager for Cytec Engineering Materials, and Mark Loyd (right photo), lead engineer of composites for American Airlines, tackled the subject of composite materials shortages at a panel today at AVIATION WEEK's MRO Conference & Exhibition. Shumate said the composites material market will be very tight until about 2009. CLICK HERE  to listen to what Shumate and Loyd suggest for MROs.  --Lee Ann Tegtmeier

Interview with Satellite Navigation Pioneer

Brian O'Keeffe, an Australian expert on satellite navigation and ATC modernization in the Asia Pacific region, spoke to Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine Senior Editor Dave Hughes at AVIATION WEEK’s MRO conference in Atlanta on April, 18.  O'Keeffe talks about progress on satellite navigation in the Far East to date and prospects for further improvements.  The satellite navigation pioneer was recognized in Atlanta as this year's winner of AVIATION WEEK's Welch Pogue Award for a lifetime of achievement in air navigation.  His efforts helped keep Australia and the surrounding region on the leading edge of navigation advances for several decades.  O'Keeffe's 50 year career in civil aviation included top posts in air traffic services in Australia and then as Australia's ambassador to the International Civil Aviation Organization leading efforts from Montreal to institute the Future of Air Navigation (FANS).  He is currently an advisor to several groups on ATC issues and is teaching the next generation of air navigation engineers as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Canberra . The AVIATION WEEK award is given each year in memory of the late L Welch Pogue, an American who was of the founding fathers of the International Civil Aviation Organization.  Download BrianOKeefe.mp3  to listen to the interview.

Pratt & Whitney and UAL Services Enter Agreement

Pratt & Whitney and UAL Services Wednesday used the MRO conference exhibit hall as the backdrop to formalize an agreement in which the airline will do work on behalf of the engine-maker at each of its 30 line-maintenance stations. Engine line maintenance will be provided on all models that United currently supports, said United Services Senior VP Bill Norman and Pratt & Whitney Senior VP & GM, Global Services Partners James Keenan. In addition, Pratt & Whitney's EcoPower engine wash services will be available for all engine types.  Norman and Keenan said plans are to expand services to more engine types and eventually beyond engine maintenance.

Sean Broderick

Shotsberger on Continental's Maintenance

Dave Shotsberger, Continental Airlines' director of technical operations for the Southeast U.S., Europe and Caribbean, spoke with O&M at AVIATION WEEK's MRO Conference & Exhibition in Atlanta about maintenance work ramping up at Continental. He also provides insight into developing future MRO leaders. To hear the interview,  download Dave_Continental.mp3.

Lee Ann Tegtmeier

Integration Buzz

"Full integration" has surpassed "Lean" in MRO industry buzzword speak. Much chatter is flowing about how airlines want MRO aggregators to become a single point of contact. It seems MRO as full service models are the wave of the future. Some MRO execs say the best way to satisfy carrier needs to offer the full package is through partnerships or acquisitions.

Comair Blitz

Folks from Comair's newly launched maintenance arm were onhand at the MRO show, hinting they'll have significant announcements soon. The regional carrier has two hangars onhand for heavy CRJ maintenance in Cincinnati and hopes to offer services from Orlando soon.

Empire's Lean Debut

Empire Aero Center President Brian Olsen says the formal lauch of lean at the MRO starts next week. The company hired LMI Aerospace subsidiary TCA as consultants.   "I see that as channeling the intelligence and creativity of our workforce in a very organized fashion to make improvements at the company," Olsen explains on the MRO show floor.  Olsen joined Empire about a year-and-a-half ago. Empire's man-hour backlog has skyrockted from zero in January 2006 to 300,000 a year later. Since January backlog has grown to 400,000. The company customer roster includes Air Canada, JetBlue, Virgin America and Transaero.

Kudos to Nuts & Bolts, O&M Award Winners

The ATA awarded its Nuts & Bolts honors last night to surprised recipients. ATA honored three talented people: (left to right) FedEx's Ron Wickens, Delta's Tony Charaf and Heico's Eric Mendelson. All three seemed surprised to receive the honors. Wickens, who won the 1997 Nuts & Bolts award, was honored for his lifetime achievements in maintenance and engineering.

O&M also presented its Outstanding Achievement Award to American Airlines' Bob Reding and John Conley for their efforts to transform the airline's maintenance business, and to Goodrich's Nick Heminger for developing the TAP assessment tool and for his work in human factors in maintenance. Congratulations to all!

Big Doings In Atlanta

MRO Commercial Day 1 is over, and lots of news was made--most notably (or at least most often) by the home team. For a while, Delta TechOps was dispatching announcements like its flight ops partners send jetliners out of Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson--with rapid regularity.

Wednesday's big news came in five parts, summarized in this Web story on AviationWeek.com. The big deal: a 12-year pact to not only maintain, but "manage" Mesa's CF34s.

Another nugget confirmed by Delta TechOps Senior VP Tony Charaf--the unit in-sourced $312 million worth of work in 2006, beating its goal by $42 million and topping 2005's total of $250 million.

The carrier's four-pack of joint ventures also underscored its measured approach to smart resource allocation--it is actually kicking CF6-80C2B8F work out the door. Why? So few are in service--they power 767-400s--that it makes more sense to pour the resources into a longer-term, higher-growth product line, Delta TechOps execs said...

In other news revealed at the show, Pratt & Whitney bagged three contracts from Delta (including some noted in Delta's announcements referenced above), and announced that it "successfully completed" its first  endurance test of CFM56-3 PMA parts on two Pratt-owned CFM56-3s. (One is pictured at left, during testing on April 5. Thanks for the photo, P&W).  Pratt & Whitney's Global Material Solutions offers 48 CFM56-3 parts, including 19 life-limited, rotating parts.  The company's booth at MRO has several on display (as noted and seen in this post by one Lee Ann Tegtmeier), including a high pressure compressor (HPC) 1-2 spool, a 4-9 spool and a front hub...

Elsewhere, Standard Aero is now an officially recognized service provider for Honeywell GTCP36-100/150s and RE220 APUs (full story on AW.com here). The deal puts an end to Standard Aero's use of PMA parts on these overhauls, effective when existing supplier contracts expire...

Finally, FAA Flight Standards Service Director Jim Ballough says the agency's safety management systems rulemaking for maintenance organizations is being slowed a bit. "We're facing the dynamic of an election year for the next two years, so there's been some constraints put on us in terms of rulemaking activities," he said Wednesday. "But we're going to do everything we can to get the rule out. We're moving full-speed ahead with pilot programs and we're going to learn a lot from those. We hope to have it in place by [ICAO's deadline of] 2009."

Lots more to come, here and over at AviationWeek.com's second-to-none vertical channel.

Also, don't miss the special online issue of MRO Show News.

--Sean Broderick

Heard at MRO ...

... Lufthansa Technik Composite Tulsa is getting into the CFM56-5B cowling and thrust reverser repair business to take advantage of the growing number of Airbus A320s flying around. A "major customer" has been signed for the new service,  but LHT isn't identifying that customer yet, other than to say it's a North American carrier.

... Speaking about LHT, August Henningsen, chairman of the Lufthansa Technik Executive Board, said today that the improved reliability of components means that it now takes as many as 4 times more airplanes to fill an MRO's backshops than it did a decade ago. "You can't rely on 200 to 300 aircraft to fill your shops," he said. This is one of the factors driving the industrialization of MRO, he said. (Look for more later in an upcoming issue of O&M.)

...Perhaps responding to recent broadsides from Congress, Jim Ballough, director of the FAA Flight Standards Service, said "We recognize there is a different business model today" with outsourcing. He said there is a perception out there that low cost means something less safe or of less quality. "We know that's wrong." He went on to say that FAA wants to see efficiency and industry growth, but not at the expense of safety. By Frank Jackman