Sir - Aircraft engineers worldwide are aware that, if the airlines do not make a profit, they will go out of business.
The trend is for airlines to expect the maximum from their aircraft, but they do not keep enough spares to maintain their fleets. Maintaining a large inventory of parts is a big outlay.
Pressure is applied to engineering departments to get the aircraft into the air (not at the cost of safety, but with systems legally operational). These systems could have been "normal" had spares been available.
Maintenance departments and organisations are specialists, and maintain aircraft according to schedules. Over the past few years, engineering departments have been separated, or even sold off, by the airlines. This may, on occasion, be sound business practice, but, on others, it appears that aircraft maintenance is in effect the "bottom line". So, these airlines would rather separate maintenance from the airline, or contract it out to maintenance organisations (AMOs) at minimum cost. Those AMOs then need to attract engineers to conduct the work. Hence the old saying that, if you pay peanuts, what will the final outcome be?
The AMOs are coming out of a recession where they had to take work at break-even prices and were still expected to produce a product better than new.
It is now time for some thought for the "man outside" who is performing to the maximum and supporting the airlines in their quest for the ever-elusive dollar.
ANDRE VAN ZYL
Hong Kong
Source: Flight International
