The stand allocation model for aircraft MRO service provider

ABSTRACT

In recent years, airlines have been expanding their fleets, but this has posed a challenge in terms of limited airport space for maintenance facilities. Maintenance, repair, and overhaul provider (MRO) enhances the efficiency of existing space utilization by reducing the distance between parked aircraft. However, it is often necessary to change the position of parked aircraft during maintenance and if there are other aircraft blocking this movement it is necessary to interrupt the original maintenance work to allow the aircraft to pass. Unnecessary relocation of aircraft could reduce maintenance efficiency and increase costs. This study adopts mathematical programming with a network flow technique to develop an MRO stand allocation model. The effectiveness of the proposed model is evaluated in a case study performed using the data collected from a Taiwan aircraft MRO service provider. The results demonstrate that the proposed model could be a useful and practical planning support tool.

KEYWORDS:

• Stand allocation
• maintenance
• repair
• overhaul provider
• MRO
• mathematical programming
• network flow technique

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the aircraft MRO service provider in Taiwan for kindly providing the test data and their valuable opinions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Science and Technology Council, Taiwan [grant number: MOST108-2221-E-032-048-MY3].