Air Works, an independent aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) company, may not be finding it a cakewalk in the Third Party Line Maintenance (TPLM) business as many airlines insist on doing it themselves.
Third Party Line Maintenance (TPLM) is a function performed by an external agency other than the airline or the airport for aircraft checks at airports after an aircraft lands and before it takes off on next flight. In the present scenario this function is performed solely by the airlines or through affiliated airlines with no other available options.
“There is a reluctance on the part of airlines to outsource the line maintenance. Airlines are committing hara kiri with their intran-sigence and insisting on doing the job themselves, leading to higher overheads,” said an aviation analyst.
K V Krishnan, V-P (airline MRO), Air Works, said each airline needs to have at least one engineer and one or two mechanics in addition to any other personnel who may be required and of course, an office. But, with DGCA stipulations stating that the shift should change every eight hours, it can mean a major cost on the human resources front for the airlines.
“Revenues and the margins are good in this line of business for a third party maintenance company, but can be a financial drain if each airline insists on having their set of people to do the line maintenance,” said K V Krishnan, V-P (airline MRO), Air Works. As of now Air Works does the line of job at Chennai, Bangalore, Trichy and Thiruvanthapuram, and had entered into an agr-eement with the Bangalore International Airport Limited in October 2010. As of now the company is handling around 100 jobs a month at the Trichy airport.
It costs $200 per narrow-bodied aircraft and $400 per wide-bodied aircraft and takes about 45 minutes and up to two hours respectively for each aircraft, Krishnan said.
With the Bengaluru International Airport BIAL) handling about 500 transits a month, Airworks could find it a big opportunity in Bangalore.
Air Works has invested over ~1.5 crore on setting up line maintenance facilities. Bangalore is the maintenance control centre of Air Works.
Presently, Air Works has no competition from any Indian company exclusively into this business. It, however, faces stiff competition from international players like KLM, which services many airline companies. They make much more business out of TPLM than the core airline business, industry sources said.
Just as ground hand-ling and baggage hand-ling is done by just one or two players for all airlines at an airport, saving airlines the need for separate inf-rastructure for the same, perhaps it’s time for the same in line maintenance too. Line maintenance is not the core job for airlines anyway.
Airside line maintenance in India often includes only turnaround checks. As of now all airlines have their own set of engineers, technicians and the requisite equipment. At a time when airlines are facing extreme cost pressures, and are looking for all possible ways to cut cost, it’s surprising that each airline prefers to have its own team for the line maintenance service at the airports.
Across the world, all major airports have third party line maintenance (TPLM) firms doing the job, saving them thousands of Dollars. A company for whom maintenance is part of their core business, they have greater flexibility and hence can set up an office or expand to any airport as and when a customer would need them, the analyst added.
Getting infrastructure, including land, and facilities in airports are the two biggest issues facing this line of business. According to BIAL sources, “BIAL has an agreement with Air Works for Third Party Line Maintenance Service.”
Through TPLM, BIAL provides line maintenance services that are certified and at cost-effective prices to airlines, while offering services such as trouble shooting, defect rectification, component replacement and scheduled maintenance and/or checks including visual inspections.
