Improving aviation maintenance worldwide. Success cases from Lufthansa, EL AL, Air France & KLM

The aviation industry is competitive. However, there is one area in which the responsible airlines don’t compete but support each other – ensuring the safety and reliability of the air fleet. Maintenance plays a key role in this process. With established actions and processes, such as line and heavy maintenance, or shop maintenance, airlines ensure the airworthiness of the aircraft, proactively protecting crew and passengers and eliminating all potential risks. According to IATA, flying is the safest form of long-distance traveling the world has ever known. Though there still is room for improvement, facts show that taking a bus or train for a longer trip causes more risk. How did we achieve that?

Airlines put a lot of effort into developing the best aircraft maintenance practices and implementing innovations in the processes. The QOCO team collected a few benchmark examples of how aviation industry leaders ensure the safety of their own air fleet with in-house solutions, providing their high-quality expertise to other airlines.

Lufthansa Technik is a worldwide recognized leader in providing the highest quality maintenance. They cover a lot of services but we’ve found  few solutions especially captivating:

• Engine services support worldwide with 11 engine service facilities, seven test cells, and repair station certificates from 35 countries. The scope of work varies from ad-hoc engine repairs to complete fleet optimization programs. Lufthansa Technik is constantly improving its capabilities as new types of engines come to the market.
• Components matter. The Lufthansa Technik team is picky about selecting aircraft parts, which ensures its 100%  reliability and quality. So far 5 000 aircraft have exclusive support for components contracts.
• Dedication to R&D and Innovations. Lufthansa Technik is a truly technology-driven company that believes that innovation development is opening up new dimensions for MRO. As a technology solutions provider, the QOCO Systems team can’t agree more!

EL AL is a national carrier of Israel that was established more than 60 years ago. Their safety records are excellent and engineering and technical teams earned well-deserved recognition for professionalism and excellence in performing all types of maintenance requirements.

Besides advanced line and heavy maintenance solutions, El Al Techunit provides some outstanding MRO capabilities:

• The Engine & APU department is a reason the airline earned its strong reputation. EL AL managed to develop the capability to keep planes in the air with reduced ground time and provide those solutions to external customers.
• The Avionics Engineering Department helps to plan changes in the aircraft systems, ensuring they meet strict demands. Their responsibilities also include defining  systems for new planes in EL AL service, ensuring service booklets are integrated, organizing engineering support to the workshops for planning new testing equipment, and handling the existing one

Air France Industries KLM Engineering & Maintenance is one of the leaders in the aeronautics maintenance market. AFI KLM has “The MRO Lab” where all innovations are developed and tailored for the challenges of aircraft maintenance. The department’s main focuses are:

• PROGNOS® – Predictive maintenance, with a goal is to replace aircraft system components before they fail. The lab is leveraging its deep knowledge of aircraft systems, ability to innovate, and Big Data Skills.
• Digitalization activities to reshape all operations. According to the lab, it is not only about going paperless but ensuring traceability in all operations, sorting, analyzing, and accessing data in the blockchain.
• Cutting-edge robotics and automation. Adaptive modern robots are able to work in difficult conditions, reaching inaccessible places for humans, e.g. drones. 3D printing is already used for quick recreation of some parts of the airplane.

QOCO Systems’ solutions have also been designed to ensure the safety of the airfleet. EngineData.io provides the highest data quality for airlines, which enables data-based decision-making and eliminates the possibility of human error. MROTools.io helps to improve the tools management process and make sure the maintenance team has the required equipment available at all times. Our consulting team with 10+ years of experience can tell airlines how to get the most out of any MRO software solution. 

Get in touch to learn more.

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