Heavy Maintenance?

[Birdman]

It is often said that WN performs no heavy maintenance on their own aircraft. Can anyone confirm this to be true?

 

[787nightmare]

Not true...WN has a few heavy lines going in DAL.
But they do outsource quite a bit of the heavys.

 

[wnbubbleboy]

It is often said that WN performs no heavy maintenance on their own aircraft. Can anyone confirm this to be true?

That would be a surprise to the guys in Dallas who preform heavy maintenance on a regular basis. We do have Three MRO facilities that also do heavy work. So..... short answer is yes, Southwest does it's own Heavy maintenance work.

 

[FWAAA]

With just 2,488 maintenance personnel, it's obvious that WN doesn't disassemble its airplanes or engines to the same extent that AA does in Tulsa. Here's what the WN 10-K says about maintenance (page 19):

The Company performs substantially all line maintenance on its aircraft and provides ground support services at most of the airports it serves. However, the Company has arrangements with certain aircraft maintenance firms for major component inspections and repairs for its airframes and engines, which comprise the majority of the Company’s annual aircraft maintenance costs.

WN ended 2009 with 537 737s and spent $719 million on maintenance materials and repairs.

No doubt WN performs plenty of routine maintenance (substantially all line maintenance) and A and B checks, but heavy C checks are outsourced.

 

[wnbubbleboy]

With just 2,488 maintenance personnel, it's obvious that WN doesn't disassemble its airplanes or engines to the same extent that AA does in Tulsa. Here's what the WN 10-K says about maintenance (page 19):



WN ended 2009 with 537 737s and spent $719 million on maintenance materials and repairs.

No doubt WN performs plenty of routine maintenance (substantially all line maintenance) and A and B checks, but heavy C checks are outsourced.

Not knowing the whole maintenance picture I am just touching probably the back part of the elephant here. With that being said what I think are our C checks are covered by the big 4 DAL-MDW-PHX-HOU. MRO's cover most of the Heavy D's.

Don't know for sure if it's GE that does our engine cores but we do have an engine shop that customizes them to our specific standards. I also remember reading a press release where we are sharing a pool of aircraft engines with American and some other carriers.

 

[FWAAA]

I see part of the problem - inconsistent terminology. At AA, the process of complete disassembly and reassembly of the airframe is called a Heavy C check, while at WN, that process is a D check. Those are the maintenance checks that WN outsources.

 

[wnbubbleboy]

I see part of the problem - inconsistent terminology. At AA, the process of complete disassembly and reassembly of the airframe is called a Heavy C check, while at WN, that process is a D check. Those are the maintenance checks that WN outsources.

Other than a couple of "D" checks in DAL, in the words of the late great Ed McMahon "You are correct sir!"

I don't know what the future holds now regarding Maintenance. With the possible addition of Airtran and taking us out of our niche I am gonna consider my self out of my element and shut up............

Time to pull out the book "Who moved my Cheese".......Now for a look at the old WN

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAbGW3i3LM0

 

[Bob Owens]

I see part of the problem - inconsistent terminology. At AA, the process of complete disassembly and reassembly of the airframe is called a Heavy C check, while at WN, that process is a D check. Those are the maintenance checks that WN outsources.

Its not just terminogy, each carrier comes up with their own program and whats done on a check can vary widely. For instance a B-1 might be a light lighter check, fewer cards than a B-10. Some carriers, such as AA will take cards (tasks) that are normally done on C checks and have them done on B-checks in order to meet performance objectives on the C-check lines or to stretch out the time between C-checks. I've even seen cards that are normally assigned to B-checks done on A checks.

Years ago when I first went into Avionics I worked side by side with an EX-EAL mechanic who could not understand why we had to do a high level pitot static check when we replaced the Air Data Computer on a 727, they were the exact same parts as EAL, even same part number. The reason why was thats what AAs MM called for, EALs didnt.

This is why its hard to compare numbers between airlines, even if they have the exact same equipment their maintenance programs and manuals can be different. If the manuals are different it may mean that the same job is more complex at one carrier compared to another.


Carriers have different limits and proceedures.

You cant tell me that an airplane flies all day but everything breaks on its last leg into a station where the pilots know they have mechanics. The fact is that pilots sit on items until they get where they want, if they feel its really critical they may write it up right away and ground the aircraft but I think its obvious that pilots routinely fly aircraft in an unairworthy condition to get where they want to be. As a result carriers can get away with minimal staffing of mechanics.