The Importance of Syncing Maintenance Events on your “Due” Schedule

We often get requests from operators to help “clean” their due lists and sync the maintenance events. Many aircraft will, over time, get the intervals out of alignment. For example, they may see that the 24M event is due 3-6 months apart from the 12M requirements. We’ve even seen aircraft with events that should be due together, over a year apart on the due/status reports.

Typically, this comes from completing an event early or late and not making the appropriate correction at the following interval. Most inspection programs allow a grace period for hourly and calendar requirements with the requirement that the amount over-run is deducted from the next interval.

The downside to this schedule disparity can often include additional maintenance events and increased down-time.

An example would be a regular G200 customer who was putting the airplane down 3 and 4 times every year because his maintenance was so spread out. West Star worked with them to get their maintenance to 2 times a year, one at 6M for batteries and minor items and another at 12M for the annual items.

All aircraft are susceptible and more so with older airframes. Some OEMs do allow for the accumulation of “grace” periods and some do not, but typically, the operators will often overlook the specifics of the program in this regard.

Be sure to check the program rules as most OEM programs require that over-runs be subtracted at the next interval. Many will not want to do any maintenance early, but it’s actually beneficial to do so in some cases. It would be much better than adding an additional event to catch items that are out of sync.

The best way to avoid having maintenance items out of sync is to accomplish stray/out of phase items ahead of time with regular scheduled events as well as diligent management of the coming events calendar. Of course, this is always much easier with a trusted maintenance provider like West Star Aviation.