EasyJet has subscribed to Airbus's digital services platform Skywise in order to roll out predictive maintenance across its A320-family fleet.
The UK budget carrier has since 2015 been participating with Airbus in a trial under which onboard technical data is analysed to assess component performance and enable replacement of equipment before any failure. The trial, concentrated on three specific technical issues, involved 85 aircraft in EasyJet's fleet.
Now, the airline has signed a five-year agreement to apply the service across its entire fleet, says Airbus.
Flight Fleets Analyzer shows that EasyJet has 291 A320-family jets in service and another 134 on order.
Its entire fleet will by summer 2019 be equipped with a Rockwell Collins-supplied data recording and transmission unit – dubbed the flight operations and maintenance exchanger (FOMAX) – which will increase the number of available parameters to 24,000 per flight, from 400.
Airbus has previously said that FOMAX will be available for line- and retrofit from the second quarter of this year.
EasyJet chief executive Johan Lundgren believes the use of predictive maintenance can make a "tangible difference" for the airline and passengers.
"It will transform the way that we maintain and operate our aircraft with the long-term aim of eliminating delays due to technical faults," he adds.
Airbus chief executive Tom Enders describes the previous trial as having been "tremendously successful" and states that he is "delighted to further cement our collaboration" with EasyJet.
The airframer launched the Skywise platform in 2017.
Search aerospace career opportunities now with Flight Jobs
Source: FlightGlobal.com
