Maintenance
From AirlineSimPedia
Your aircraft aren't going to be flying for very long if they aren't kept in good repair; you can choose a maintenance provider later, if you like, but if you're going to be preparing flight plans soon it's probably best to pick one now; changing providers later will change the amount of time your aircraft can spend in the air and how long they have to stay on the ground per day, so you may have to change your flight plans later if you change your provider.
Procedure
Navigate to Enterprise → Fleet Management → Maintenance; once you reach the list of Available Maintenance Contractors, here's what to think about:
- Price is fairly self-explanatory; this represents the relative cost of performing the same amount of maintenance on an aircraft.
- Quality represents the standard to which maintenance is performed; a low-quality provider may never get your aircraft to 100% condition.
- Efficiency represents the amount of maintenance which can be done in a particular amount of time; a very efficient provider will get more done in less time than a very inefficient one, although it may not be worth the price premium, particularly if your aircraft spend a long time on the ground.
Additional hints & Expert knowledge
- Minimum flightplan gap: The minimal gap between your flights (incl. turnaround times) is 120 minutes, if you want maintenance to take place within that timespan! 119 minutes will not suffice, so no maintenance will be carried out at all, if your "no-fly time" is below two hours.
- Symmetric schedules with daily maintenance windows will allow you to go for a maintenance contractor that is "efficient" . It may be wise to choose both an efficient and cheap contractor.
- Asymmetric schedules may shift your focus from price towards a contractor offering high quality maintenance. This is due to the slower deteroration of the aircrafts' condition.
- Owned planes allow your schedules to be less tight. Instead of cramping the schedule, you can leave gaps for connecting flight waves. Going for a contractor that is superior in terms of price may be worth the sacrifice of quality and / or efficiency in some cases, while reducing maintenance costs for every single flight carried out. Seems odd? No! A popular real life example for this strategy is Allegiant Air[1]
- The age of your aircraft does not alter the amount of time required for maintenance, but does influence the costs. The older your plane, the more spare parts will be used during maintenace, as failures and wear take their toll.
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