There is a constant battle within airlines between the realities of operational efficiency and commercial reality and acting on all signals predictive technology generates
Speaking at this week’s PAM APAC conference in Singapore, Jetstar fleet programmes manager Julien Ardourel, said engineering teams are seen as a cost centre.
He said the airline does plan for potential future AOG events by putting aircraft on routes where they can be repaired more easily.
But he said there are times in the operation when alerts of potential component failure have to be let through due to the need of the airline to avoid ground time.
“We have to make sure we are building and scaling. In any airline you are constantly fighting with the operation because they are saying that aircraft as to fly otherwise it is not making money.”
Since COVID Jetstar has invested in Skywise solutions for its fleet of A320s and Ardourel said as a carrier that survives on this margins convincing the carrier’s finance chief it was worth it was the first challenge.
He said the second challenge was convincing the airline’s line engineer to carry out work when there appeared to be nothing wrong.
“We have to work with them and show that being ahead of the game it can actually prevent a lot of headaches. There’s nothing worse than at 3am getting a phone call to say an aircraft is dead somewhere.”
Ardourel said Jetstar has built trust among its engineering team by showing them data to prove the positive impact of a preventative approach. “They were quite amazed by that so they have gained trust in the new way of working and today that’s not a problem.”
The cost of cancellations and delays is the “ultimate pay check to justify investment in any predictive platform,” added Ardourel who also said the impact of bad publicity when an aircraft goes tech is also a big driving force.
