Air(line)worthy

Like most companies, airlines strive to offer a better service with less capital equipment and less overall investment. Passenger aircraft are expensive to operate. Unless they are fully utilised, operators can be forced to reduce fleet numbers so they can increase the efficiency of remaining planes. That amounts to fewer aircraft, flying more hours with shorter windows for scheduled maintenance.

When these time-pressed aircraft are grounded for annual overhauls – usually for just one or two weeks at a time, companies supplying refits and maintenance services have to respond quickly to ensure they return to service without delay.

“Our customers are very demanding,” says James Deans, director of Airline Components International (ACI) Ltd., a company specialising in the design and manufacture of aircraft interiors.

“They send us their statement of requirements or aircraft interior parts and we design, reverse engineer or re-make before the aircraft returns to operational service. The window for doing so may be a matter of days.”