Cirium Launches First Phase of Satellite-Based Aircraft Maintenance Tracking
Cirium has revealed what it says is the aviation industry’s first satellite-based aircraft maintenance tracking feature in its Ascend Profiles module.
The new Ground Events feature enables aircraft and engine manufacturers, maintenance, repair and overhaul service providers, parts suppliers, lessors and insurers to monitor and predict future aircraft maintenance events.
This means businesses can better understand when and where an aircraft last had a maintenance event and forecast its next visit.
It also helps to identify aircraft transitions and define strategies around how and where maintenance and aftermarket budgets are being allocated by operators or owners.
Jeremy Bowen, CEO at Cirium, said: “We are innovators and constantly looking to surface new ideas to empower the aviation industry.
“By tracking each ground event of an airline’s aircraft, we can identify whether it was for redesigned cabins, new aircraft branding, a maintenance event, or for its return to service.”
The first phase of the new Ground Events feature captures all instances when aircraft spend over seven days on the ground and identifies the aircraft registration, airport, arrival date and time, departure date and time, ground event duration (in days) and aircraft age. For specific airlines the feature showcases the types of maintenance activity and the provider.
The new feature demonstrates the power of combining Cirium’s fleets and advanced satellite-based flight tracking data with the MRO locations and MRO relationships data.
In one example, it shows Air France has been redesigning the cabin interiors of all 15 of their Airbus A330 fleet to match the interiors of their A350 aircraft.
This reflects the carrier’s focus on enhancing the passenger experience and benefitted the airline when air travel started to return post the COVID-19 lockdowns. All 15 A330s were ready to return to service with the new interiors installed in July 2020.
Meanwhile, the feature shows how Lufthansa returned five of their Airbus A340s, which were due for retirement, back into service as the pandemic impacted the deliveries of new aircraft.
It further records how the airline partnered with IAC in Dublin to repaint the A340s in the new Lufthansa livery and regular maintenance checks were conducted by Lufthansa Technik Malta, Lufthansa Technik Philippines, and Joramco.
Given the increased demand during the pandemic for the shipment of PPE and the rise of ecommerce, Cirium’s Ground Events data shows how Federal Express (FedEx) was able to maximize its fleet and leverage strong relationships with their maintenance provider. FedEx ramped up their cargo flights, utilizing young aircraft – around 1 to 8 years old – and maintained a consistent 2-year maintenance cycle.
The Ground Events feature is part of the Ascend Profiles User Interface (UI) which visualizes aircraft intelligence of airline and lessor profiles and provides quick insights around aircraft types, airport locations, OEMs, MROs and more. Available as an app on a desktop, mobile or tablet.
