Air Canada Jazz expects increased maintenance costs this year as the carrier catches up on heavy maintenance checks on its fleet of Bombardier CRJs and Dash 8s.
The company has four heavy maintenance lines operating at capacity and has outsourced work to US CRJ operator Comair and to two Dash 8 overhaul centers in Canada. Executives did not name the Canadian centers during an investors call last week.
The company will outsource 11 heavy maintenance checks at a cost of between $4 million and $4.5 million this year, Jazz Air CFO and senior VP Allan Rowe says, noting that last year’s seven outsourced heavy maintenance checks cost $2 million.
“I would classify this situation primarily as a hump right now,” a Jazz executive explains, who notes the carrier has a number of heavy checks occurring over a fairly short period of time.
Heavy maintenance-related overtime costs are expected to increase between $1.2 million and $2.3 million this year “due to an arbitrative ruling with the CAW [Canadian Auto Workers union] to permit outsourcing, which increased the rates paid on certain types of maintenance overtime”, Rowe says.
The airline has 64 Dash 8s and 73 CRJs, according to Flight’s ACAS database.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
Source: FlightGlobal.com
