Jetstar say 787 maintenance too expensive!

[1279shp]

Jetstar airs concerns about Boeing 787 maitenance costs
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Boeing 787 launch customer Jetstar is concerned that operating costs for its new fleet will be significantly higher than expected after receiving the first batch of bids for aftermarket support.

Speaking at the maintenance master class during last week's Asian Aerospace Congress in Hong Kong, Seb Mackinnon, acting general manager of procurement at the Qantas low-cost subsidiary, said that the figures Jetstar has calculated so far for 787 per hour operating cost is "quantum higher than what the Qantas Group was expecting and that's obviously pretty alarming".

Jetstar has received 787 maintenance bids from Boeing, all major suppliers and some third-party providers. This includes a bid for Boeing's GoldCare turnkey lifecycle support programme as well as bids covering individual systems. Mackinnon declines to disclose Jetstar's maintenance cost estimate but says it was calculated by slicing, dicing and combining various bids. He told the conference the higher than expected figure is likely the result of high risk premiums being levied by the original equipment manufacturers.

"We'd like to see less risk premium," he says. "We think OEMs should be carving out [part of] that given they know their product."

Boeing Commercial Aviation Services integrated materials management director Joe Brummit agrees risk premiums are currently being priced high but told the conference they should reduce as suppliers get a better understanding of the customer requirements and go through the request for proposals process. "People are trying to figure out what we're actually pricing," Brummit says.

Jetstar also expects the prices to come down as second and third bids are received. "It's early days," Mackinnon says.

He acknowledges the high risk premiums are not surprising given the technology on the 787 is new and the aircraft is not yet in service. But Jetstar is concerned the prices may not go down fast enough given the carrier needs to soon start awarding maintenance, spare parts and other support contracts to support the aircraft's August 2008 entry into service. Qantas, which has firm commitments for 65 787s, has so far allocated Jetstar the first 15 aircraft from this order.

Jetstar is also concerned it may be forced to pay more for maintenance because there are no or few third-party maintenance providers for many of the components and systems. "The lack of competition probably makes a difference," Mackinnon says.

Boeing launched GoldCare in mid-2006 but has not yet secured a launch customer and "continues to evolve" says Mackinnon. Boeing's Brummit concurs, saying: "Absolutely, it's still evolving. We continue to get inputs from customers. We won't get stuck on one model."

But Mackinnon says it is not only GoldCare which is priced too high but also the individual bids from the suppliers, most or all of whom are also partners in the GoldCare programme. "It's not just GoldCare. It's aggregate and it's rough numbers," Mackinnon says.

[IAW]

who cares?

[porch monkey]

Shoulda thought about that earlier then huh...... You can always sell the spots and go buy more airboos:rolleyes:

[priapism]

Any cost is too expensive for crapstar !

[Redstone]

$hitestar don't want to pay. End of story. What's the bet Qf end up footing the bill.

[Lowkoon]

Treat it like they treat pilot training. Just dont do it. :hmm:

[Taildragger67]

Hmmm... wonder if it might make economic/business sense to set up some sort of in-house (ie. within the "Qantas Group") heavy-maint organisation? :ugh: :hmm:

Goodonya....

[The Mr Fixit]

Pornstar was created to deflower the Virgin

So simply it is only rosemary's Baby coming back to haunt it's creator, a parasite attached to the host.

It would be great to see the creative accounting but it'll be cold day in hell before that'll occur I believe the leprechaun hid it with his pot of gold by the way it doubled this year

[Kiwiguy]

who cares?


..every airline that has signed up for the 787 I'd say.

Mmmm lots of yummy fail-hard carbon fibre with hard to detect cracking.

Oh so suddenly all those airlines who did not rush out to buy the 787 are rubbing their hands that their block hour costs will be lower.

[Buster Hyman]

"787 Launch customer"???

I don't think so Tim!:=

Gee, I'm really feeling my age now. When I first got in to Aviation, airlines never mentioned theirs or anyone else's "incidents" & airlines would never, ever raise questions about their maintenance in public! What would the average Jetstar punter think when they read this?

"If the maintenance is too costly, they're gonna try & save money! Lets try the other mob Ferrett"

"Awroit Raelene"http://www.clicksmilies.com/s1106/spezial/Fool/crazy.gif

[Taildragger67]

I'm not a structures expert, so I don't know if it's a workable analogy, but the one tubular bit of carbon-fibre structure I've seen go - rowing oars - tend to hold together pretty well, but when weakened in any way - then they go with a bang. And they fail completely.

Actually I've also seen tubular carbon-fibre boat rigging go as well, and likewise any failure is catastrophic. And any damage to a monocoque carbon boat hull - get thee to port pronto and all hands to the pumps.

oneAustralia AUS35 (http://www.americascup.com/en/acclopaedia/boatdestiny/index.php?idIndex=0&idContent=2540) :eek:

From what I've seen (which is admittedly limited), carbon structures either hang together competely, or fail totally. :hmm:

[golfjet744]

This is actually a very serious problem for jetstar. Increase the cost base beyond what the model can handle and watch the deck of cards fall. Unless it turns itself into a full service carrier :sad:

[Keg]

Perhaps Jetstar and the QF group are seeing what occurs when we don't have our own in house heavy maintenance capability. We can't get the work done ourselves so we have to pay whatever the 'market' dictates. Given the tight slots for maintenance around the world it appears that we now don't have much choice.

I was speaking to one of our former heavy maintenance guys last night (he was part of the OJH rescue in BKK) and he's alarmed at the lack of corporate memory now in QF with respect to either rescuing aircraft or even being able to maintain them if required! :eek:

[Managers Perspective]

Failure to recognise the context of this post validates a fundamental concern that some engineers have no understanding at all about the significance of maintenance cost per operating hour.

Shake the head a bit guys, look up and lift yourselves out of your burrow, there is much more to an airline than just in-house heavy maintenance.

MP.

[employes perspective]

looks like you have shaken your head a bit to hard MP,their is also a bit more to running an airline than outsourcing ever bit of the organization you can get your hands on,it's called investing in your future,most good companies grow and accumulate knowledge and assets,not sell them off until there is nothing left to sell,sh!t then what

[Sunfish]

MP:

Failure to recognise the context of this post validates a fundamental concern that some engineers have no understanding at all about the significance of maintenance cost per operating hour.

Shake the head a bit guys, look up and lift yourselves out of your burrow, there is much more to an airline than just in-house heavy maintenance.



MP is stating the bleeding obvious yet again, and at the same time completely missing the point.

Without a heavy maintenace facility, and the associated experienced planners and support staff, there is simply no way Jetstar can even benchmark the 787 maintenance costs.

Furthermore, the quotations Jetstar receives from potential maintenance suppliers in future will recognise that:

(a) Jetstar has no in house heavy maintenace capability.

(b) Jetstar has no capability to calculate maintenance costs, except from what Boeing tells it - which of course are always "indicative" only.

The quotations Jetstar receives will take account of this, and be inflated accordingly.

To put it another way, Jetstar is just about to realise that it is going to be screwed.

And believe me when I say that I have had to calculate maintenance costs before entry into service of new aircraft types.

[Wod]

And there was me thinking it was just a standard negotiating tactic from Jetstar to try to talk the price down.

"Lovely product chaps, but the price.... "

[airsupport]

Why on Earth would Jetstar, or any other low cost carrier, even order a brand new type like this?

Surely the way to go would be with proven equipment?

[Keg]

Because J* isn't paying for them, QF is.

[airsupport]

Well then Qantas can pay for the maintenance, no problem.

They will be virtually just dry leased to Jetstar by Qantas.

[Kiwiguy]

Shake the head a bit guys, look up and lift yourselves out of your burrow, there is much more to an airline than just in-house heavy maintenance.


That comment about carbon fibre failure just went right over your head didn't it "Management Perspective"

Jetstar executives from what I can discern include the mayor of Port Stevens ( a politician!), the Chairman of an airport company (getting warmer), CEO of a regional tourism organisation (hmm let's call him marketing) an IT expert (someone who knows how to use the computer.

Hmm no institutional memory of aviation and especially of air crashes. What I'd really like to know is...

Of all the management team at Jetstar which one will run the fastest to distance themselves from the predictable air disaster which their new found obsession with cutting maintenance costs is bound to cause/

It's not a question now of whether Jetstar will kill 300+ people. Just when with all this deadwood at the top.

Not one of them "management perspective" will have the spine to stand up and say it was management's fault.

Your post here blaming engineers for these 787 problems already proves that you don't have a clue.

[Clipped]

MP and your like ... let you in on something.

When your shiny new jets roll up here, without a doubt .. that machine will break down .. whether its relatively simple or a dire AOG situation .. you WILL pay, regardless of cost.

It happens ALL the time .. and airlines want their planes flying ASAP, and they scream .. fix it .. and it costs big time.

I can assure you regardless of the number of suits, number crunshers and other useless hangers-on, you will stare through those terminal windows or tarmac cameras, rosy tinged glasses and feel completely futile.

That small group of guys down there .. that you have belittled for so long .. will remember. Better still, if we don't have the contract, we'll be having a grand old chuckle on the nearby bay.

Maintenance costs, maintenance saves.

[Big Unit]

That small group of guys down there .. that you have belittled for so long .. will remember.


Well written Clipped. Take note Big M!!!!

[Mobi LAME]

If you think the Heavy Maintenance issues are going to bite them bad, Line Maintenance is going to have a chomp earlier.

Have they picked the Engineers for the 787? NO.
Have they started EASA training for B1 and B2? NO.
Have they impreesed with the pay scale for the 787? NO.

Mind you, as a certain person in Jetstar had a love of saying:- "There's thousands of engineers out there bashing on the door to get in."

It has been rumoured that the internal applications for 787 Enginneering positions have been a bit thin. People are underwhelmed. All these problems were not helped when at the last Engineering EBA meeting the Management promptly shut down proceedings when the Engineers had the temerity to include a professional negotiator in their team for the first time.

[anawanahuanana]

Out of interest guys, what is the deal like for 787 LAME's? Had a quick look at the Pornstar website earlier, and even considered applying, until I saw they want me to pay for the privelage. They can poke it with that attitude.....:=

[Redstone]

Out of interest guys, what is the deal like for 787 LAME's? Had a quick look at the Pornstar website earlier, and even considered applying, until I saw they want me to pay for the privelage. They can poke it with that attitude.....

only fifteen bucks, you must be a Qf LAME........ tight ar$e:}

[anawanahuanana]

It's the principle, not the amount!:p

Saying that, would Pornstar employ someone with principles anyway.......?

[weasil]

when are they supposed to start taking deliveries?

[Taildragger67]

Weasil,

August 2008 for Jetstar and July 2009 for mainline. (http://www.qantas.com.au/regions/dyn/au/publicaffairs/details?ArticleID=2005/dec05/3369)

[mainwheel]

Maybe the intention is to have "most" of the maintenance done at a convienient MRO in Asia. The australian ports will be the outstations, hence no plans of training/tooling etc etc.
Maybe this is just the groundwork, so there are no surprises later.
Maybe it makes economical sense. Still have the trusted Roo on the tail, but in reality minimal australian workplace input.
Hmmmmm

[Kiwiguy]

Me wonders will Jetstar contract out to Air NZ at Auckland, or ANZES Christchurch for 787 maintenance ?

God knows Kiwi engineers are right up there with third world rates.

[domo]

I am disapointed that qantas engineering are not taking the lead in this project. I guess boeing is disapointed as well. E&M ruled the world once now its a shadow of its former self. good luck jetstar just rember if an aircraft breaks down in hawaii qantas will not be able to pull you out of the poo

[chimpstar]

Interesting point, its not hard to steal work away from Air NZ mind you, i know of 2 very enterprising ex Air NZ line engineers one AKL one WLG that stole the line work from air nz after air nz unfarily dismissed them in separate cases , by all acounts they allowed Jetstar the start up that an apparent "world class" couldnt an dit left Rob Fyfe and Greg Fowler of ANZES management seething, they showed that the underdog cant bite the biggest!...:ok:

[ANstar]

QF group have ordered 15 x 787-8's

These are due to arrive from AUG08 for JQ.

The remainder are 787-9's. I believe the first one is due around 2011.

Therefore I think we won't see any new 787's direct to QF until 2011 :ugh:

[DutchRoll]

I honestly don't see what Jetstar's problem is.

Surely they will just cook the books as usual and offload costs to QF, which then won't appear in their profit/loss statements, won't they?

Shareholders happy. Snivelling little irshman happy. Darth happy. All ops normal!

[K9P]

Failure to recognize the context of this post validates a fundamental concern that some engineers have no understanding at all about the significance of maintenance cost per operating hour.

Shake the head a bit guys, look up and lift yourselves out of your burrow, there is much more to an airline than just in-house heavy maintenance.

MP.

Which means in "Management speak" cut the costs = more productivity bonus.

So it now appears that through the last 30 or so years that I have spent in aviation, so called management have put less and less into engineering training (the same scenario applies also to nursing), where "management" (LIL) always relied on getting trained people from overseas when required, or totally disregarding trade training as an unnecessary cost, or viewing people that got their hands dirty with the utmost contempt, and thinking that they must be smarter as they don't get their hands dirty, putting nothing back into training, no continuation training.
So us LAMEs get more and more load.......who get the bonuses??????
So? what you didn't guess?

Of course costs have to be with in the operational perspectives of running a business, but you can not arbitrarily just stop wage increases for certain departments, then just give management a huge pay rise!(or bonus)
Who is out there late at night trying to get the aircraft serviceable to meet the morning schedule? Is it you MP.????

[splashman]

Jetstar A320 are covered by warrenty for 2 years, Maint costs are recovered if "defect confirmed" by Airbus or component manufacturer.

Jetstar A330 are leased from QF, I do not know who pays for the maintenance, but, if I had a lease car, and it broke down , the repair would be paid by the leasing company.

Again for the A320 after warrenty..be interesting to see if Jetstars, or Qantas's maintenance costs, (and therefore profit), increase or decline as the A320's get older.

To a dumb ass like me, maths can make anything look good, you just have to know how to play