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A tree trunk with limbs made of recycled oil drums cradling a house constructed of trash from Hurricane Katrina, with Mardi Gras beads hanging to form the eaves, is hard to not to notice.
“Scrap House,” by Sally Heller, which almost looks like a New Orleans version of Dorothy’s house in the “The Wizard of Oz,” symbolizes the loss, resilience and rebirth of the city.
The house also could represent the aviation industry’s extensive MRO transformation over the last several years. This issue of Inside MRO is filled with examples of its repurposing and renewal, as well as the roots that anchor it:
Mesa Airlines became an all-Embraer 175 fleet after flying its last MHI RJ CRJ900 aircraft on Feb. 28. The carrier will reap efficiencies from a single fleet, but it was the first airline to fly the CRJ900 in the U.S., so the aircraft retirement was somewhat bittersweet.
XEOS, the GE Aerospace/Luft-hansa Technik joint venture in Poland, formally came online in March as a CFM International Leap 1A and 1B engine MRO. It originally opened in late 2019 to focus on widebody engines—GE GEnx-2Bs for the Boeing 747-8 and GE9Xs for the 777X—but pivoted shortly afterward to accommodate narrowbody engine demand.
Speaking of engines, new airframe and powerplant production and performance problems have led to bumpy early life cycles. The typical honeymoon period of minimal maintenance has not happened. This means more work for MROs, which have created new inventory strategies to mitigate parts shortages proactively. Airlines are signing longer-term maintenance contracts to ensure slots; the whole industry is adjusting.
And Delta Air Lines, like all carriers, took a big hit during the pandemic, but that experience accelerated its maintenance-focused technology deployments, including drone inspections and predictive analytics. Delta TechOps is now rolling out artificial intelligence to help MRO teams find relevant information faster, but first it has to teach the tools “aviation language.” Otherwise, a “bleed valve inop” shop finding would make systems think “somebody was bleeding. It would tell us to call 911,” says Alice Belcher, Delta’s director of predictive technology. She will be speaking on predictive maintenance at our MRO Americas’ Go Live! Theater on April 8.
I hope to see you at MRO Americas April 8-10 in Atlanta!
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