Assessing the effect of proactive maintenance scheduling on maintenance costs and airline profitability

Abstract

This study mainly aims to examine the perception of Turkish Airlines Technic staff about the effect of proactive maintenance scheduling (PMS) on maintenance costs (MCs) and airline profitability (AP). Another purpose of the study is to reveal if the perception of the staff changes according to the demographic features and experience of the staff. As far as it is known, there is no direct study addressing the effects of PMS on MCs and airline profitability. The study is considered to be a first in this context.  In the study, Turkish Airlines-THY was chosen as the company that was handled. The fact that the company has a separate special maintenance & repair group (Turkish Airlines Technic-THYT) was effective in the selection of this company. Some additional qualifications (very rooted, with corporate governance, Turkey's top largest & full-service carrier, member of IATA and Star Alliance, and a listed company (in BIST) were also among other factors affecting the selection. Methodologically, it was used a quantitative survey with a sample of 133 THYT staff. The staff has been chosen among departments that take place actively/directly in maintenance. Besides questions that aim to measure the perception of THYT staff on the effects of PMS on MCs and AP, some demographic and experience-related questions were asked in order to find out if the perception of the staff changes according to their qualifications. The data were collected by online survey method and analyzed with SPSS version 22. Necessary tests together with Chi-square and Fisher’s tests were carried out to analyze the results. It was concluded that there is a strong correlation between PMS and the MCs. The study proved that PMS has a great decreasing effect on MCs and a great increasing effect on AP. The study also revealed that THYT personnel is like-minded and that PMS reduces MCs and increases AP as well.