Introduction
In recent years, the sustained steady and rapid growth of the Chinese economy drives China''''''''s air transport industry to flourish. The civil aviation maintenance market of China also shows a strong momentum of growth driven by the air transport market. According to the statistics, China''''''''s civil aviation maintenance market size in 2002 is around 1.19 billion USD, in 2007 growing to 1.64 billion USD, annual growth rate exceeding 7.5%, where engine maintenance accounts for 40%, Line maintenance, airplane overhaul and modification, parts repair and renovation each accounting for an equal proportion around 20%.
With the quick growth of the civil aviation maintenance market of China, more and more domestic and international maintenance units are applying for CAAC maintenance license, including independent maintenance units, aviation operator’s maintenance units, and manufacturers’ maintenance units. The development level of the civil aviation maintenance industry of China directly impacts the operational safety of China’s civil aircrafts and the operational costs of the airlines. It is an important foundation for the civil aviation industry of China. Facing the opportunity brought by the quick development of the domestic civil aviation industry and under the competition pressure from foreign civil aviation maintenance industry, how to guide the domestic civil aviation maintenance industry to improve corporate competitiveness, reduce the maintenance costs of the airlines, boost the sustained, healthy, and ordered development of domestic civil aviation industry, it is an issue both the government and the enterprises must face.
The paper is based on the data accumulated in years of organizational management of the maintenance units and relevant survey material. It analyzes the current management status of the maintenance units from their development trend, distribution, the supply of maintenance resources, and other aspects, and discusses the development environment of the domestic and foreign maintenance market. Finally it suggests the measures to guide the development of the domestic civil aviation maintenance industry.
1 Profile of the maintenance units approved by CAAC
By the end of 2007, CAAC has approved 369 domestic maintenance units and 325 foreign/regional units. The development trend and distribution of the maintenance units are as follows:
1.1 Development trend of the maintenance units approved by CAAC
(1) Growth trend for maintenance foreign/regional units
Beginning from 2002, there are an average of near 20 maintenance foreign/regional units newly approved by CAAC each year (Fig 1). More units were approved from 2005 to 2007, mainly because in recent years the fleet scale of CAAC kept growing, and the corresponding demand of the maintenance market kept increasing, to a great extent it inspired the enthusiasm of the maintenance foreign/regional units to apply for the CAAC maintenance license. Among the newly approved maintenance units, the organizations for parts maintenance grew the quickest, and the growth rate of body and dynamic device maintenance units is stale.
Each year part of the foreign maintenance units lose CAAC maintenance license due to rescinding or automatic giving up when the license matures, from 2002 to 2007 actually 55 foreign maintenance units with CAAC maintenance license are added, in average each year increasing 11, in 2007 reaching 325 (Table 1). A considerable scale has come into being.
(2) Growth trend of domestic maintenance units
Table 2 lists the changes of the total number of domestic maintenance units approved by CAAC after 2002; Fig 2 is the corresponding curve. Overall speaking, the number of maintenance units in the domestic regions has no significant change. In northwest China from 2005 to 2006 CAAC cleaned up the maintenance units in the region, cancelled the maintenance units that have censed work or cannot meet the requirements for equipment maintenance and data updating, etc, resulting in a sharp decrease in the number of maintenance units. Xinjiang Region has realized combined operation of the airports in the region by apply for multi-location management under one license, resulting in the decrease in the number of maintenance units in the region.
1.2 Distribution of maintenance units approved by CAAC
(1) Regional Distribution
The maintenance units approved by CAAC are classified by region into: domestic units, foreign units and regional units. By the end of 2007, 325 foreign/regional maintenance units hold CAAC maintenance license, plus 369 domestic maintenance units (including 93 maintenance units only engaged in Line maintenance). Because CAAC and Hong Kong Civil Aviation Department and Macau Civil Aviation Authority have signed three-party comprehensive approval agreement. Therefore the maintenance units in Hong Kong and Macau are no longer approved by CAAC directly, but after being approved by the civil aviation authorities of Hong Kong and Macau, and with the approval of the United Maintenance Management Commission to join the United Maintenance Management List, it can provide maintenance service to the mainland customers. By the end of 2007, 10 maintenance units in Hong Kong and Macau have joined the United Maintenance Management List. The regional distribution of maintenance units approved or recognized by CAAC is as shown in Fig 3 (excluding Line maintenance units).
(2) Distribution of Maintenance Projects
In the foreign/regional maintenance units approved or recognized by CAAC, 36 of them can do body project maintenance, 66 can do dynamic device (including APU) maintenance, 3 can do propeller project maintenance, 293 can do parts maintenance, see Fig 4.
Among the domestic maintenance units approved by CAAC, 130 can do body maintenance (including different levels of maintenance other than airway), 36 can do dynamic device maintenance (including APU), 11 can do propeller project maintenance, 181 can do parts maintenance, see Fig 5.
2 Civil Aviation Maintenance Capability of China and Repair-Seeking on the Market
2.1 Domestic aircraft body maintenance capability can approximately meet the demands of the domestic maintenance market
By the end of 2007, except that the fleets of A330, B737-900 and CRJ200/900 have not matched with highest level heavy maintenance capability because of the relatively new models, other models have matched with highest level heavy maintenance capability, approximately able to meet the demands of domestic maintenance market. According to the 2005-2006 domestic airlines repair-seeking data, the domestic maintenance units have occupied a major part of market shares for domestic aircraft body maintenance. The airplane heavy maintenance work of the domestic major airlines are basically done by their own maintenance units or joint venture units, only in individual cases the modification, overhaul and aircraft inspection are completed by foreign organizations; for small and medium sized airlines only individual newly established airlines outsource airplane overhaul to foreign maintenance provider. Moreover, because the human resources costs in China are relatively lower, the domestic maintenance units under the precondition of meeting the domestic maintenance market demands, also attracted the body maintenance business for part of foreign aircrafts, that is to say, the airplane body maintenance of domestic maintenance units have accessed the international market.
2.2 China has established overhaul capability for part of the engines, but the main repair capabilities for engines are still abroad
By the end of 2007, China has highest level of maintenance capability for around 20% models of engines, able to meet part of the demands of corresponding models. According to the 2005-2006 repair-seeking data of domestic airlines, for engine maintenance in China, except the models of CFM56, PW4000, RB211 and V2500, other models of engines are approximately sent abroad for repairing (Fig 6). Even for the engine overhaul completed in China, still the repair for part of engine components needs to be sent abroad. The engine maintenance capability established in China is mainly for the engine models repaired in China in large quantity. For the engine models for which maintenance capability is not established, the main reason is that the demand in the domestic market is insufficient to cover the cost input to establish the maintenance capability.
2.3 Core maintenance capability for aircraft components is still abroad
By the end of 2007, the aircraft parts that can be repaired by domestic and foreign maintenance units approved by CAAC are 37,189 items, for 29% of which the domestic maintenance units have the repairing capability, 87% of which the foreign units have the repairing capability (Fig 8), the gap in parts repairing capability between domestic and foreign units is apparent.
Fig 8 lists the distribution of parts number by ATA chapters where the domestic and foreign maintenance units have the repairing capability. We can see that for the important systems such as ATA72, ATA32, and ATA27, etc more foreign maintenance units have the capability, on one hand it is because the investment for the parts maintenance equipment for these system is huge, the maintenance units are difficult to get profits in short term, and the domestic maintenance units are usually unwilling to bear such risks; on the other hand, because of the manufacturers’ technological blockade, the domestic maintenance units are difficult to establish corresponding maintenance capability.
According to the 2005-2006 repair-seeking data of the airlines, the major part of repairing work for domestic aircraft parts are sent to the domestic maintenance units, a small part sent to the foreign maintenance units directly. However, because China lacks the in-depth repairing capability for parts, the in-depth repairing work of the domestic maintenance units after breaking down large quantity of parts. Some parts sent abroad for repairing involves core technology, some involving core parts, some having huge maintenance costs, currently this part of maintenance capability mainly gathers at OEM manufacturers and foreign units with in-depth maintenance capability, where domestic maintenance units are very difficult to involve.
3 Suggested Measures for Developing Core Technical Capability in Domestic Maintenance Industry
The critical problem existing in the domestic maintenance industry is inadequate core technological capability. Currently the OEM manufacturers often limit the development of third-party maintenance units through reducing the provision of maintenance detail information in airworthiness material, improving the price of key maintenance equipment, and other means, which seriously limits the domestic maintenance units to enhance the maintenance depth and to enlarge the maintenance scope. The domestic maintenance units in their own development process consider more for their own operational costs and revenue, to development core maintenance technology it involves long time, high costs, great risk, so most enterprises cannot bear it. In this large environment, how to improve the core technological capability of domestic maintenance industry and localize in-depth maintenance capability is an issue that the whole domestic civil aviation maintenance industry must face. The author suggests adopting the following solution measures:
(1) Absorb foreign core technologies through various ways. 1, through direct purchasing: for projects with huge market potential in the future, we can guide the enterprises to purchase them, for other projects with small market in near term and where enterprises are difficult to make profit, we can consider having the State to purchase directly. 2, through attracting with preferential conditions: through adjusting macro economic policies, such as setting up aviation industry economic zone and other means, attract foreign core technologies to be rooted in the civil aviation maintenance industry in China; 3, make full use of airplane model selection negotiation: when negotiating for airplane model selection, we should ask OEM manufacturers to provide the technological data and special tooling and equipment etc needed to develop core capabilities.
(2) Gather domestic advantageous strength to enhance independent R&D. Develop state-of-the-art core maintenance technologies, if relying on abroad we will be always restricted by others, relying on ourselves is the final solution. For projects with market potential, we can set up preferential policies to guide domestic maintenance enterprises to gather strength to realize technological break-through; For the project with small market potential in the short term but able to lead the industry to develop, we can consider R&D with the State as the investor. Moreover, the domestic civil aviation maintenance industry should enhance combining with the domestic production and manufacturing industry, absorbing the engineering technological capabilities of the production and manufacturing industry, at the same time infuse advanced management ideas to the domestic production and manufacturing industry, developing the domestic maintenance industry together. In particular, we should seize the opportunity of the grand development of domestic large airplanes, fully cooperating with the domestic aviation industry sector; effectively enable the domestic civil aviation maintenance industry to grow bigger and stronger.
(3) Improve the engineering technology validation level of CAAC. The core maintenance technological capabilities developed by China will be ultimately reflected in the use of alternative parts and the repairing beyond the OEM manual, while all these need to be approved by CAAC. Therefore, it is necessary to significantly improve the engineering technology validation level of CAAC, perfecting the engineering technology validation system of CAAC, effectively cooperating with the domestic maintenance enterprises to develop core technological capability. Furthermore, CAAC can consider establishing special technical institution, providing the supporting information and equipment needed for engineering technology approval.
(4) Improve the integrated management level of the industry. Summarizing the opinions of domestic and foreign experts, core technical capability is the “combination of all internal knowledge deposit in the internal personnel, equipment, information, and organization of the civil aviation maintenance enterprises to support the realization of technical innovation.” It is reflected in the introduction of technology and information; the learning of new technologies; producing new technologies and knowledge, ensure technological storage and accumulation; realizing technological innovation, creating benefits and other aspects. Therefore, to improve the core technical capabilities of domestic maintenance enterprises, we also need to improve the integrated management level of the enterprises, establish sound organizational and managerial system, the mechanism to introduce, cultivate and retain talents, and the channel and access to advanced scientific and technological information on a timely basis. The government can bridge domestic and foreign enterprises, enhance communication between them, boost the domestic business managers to grasp advanced management concepts as soon as possible.
Summary
Maintenance industry capability and market development analysis is one of the subjects of the civil aviation maintenance system engineering capability research project of China. It analyzes the maintenance capability development status and market distribution home and abroad, points out the problems existing in the development process of the domestic civil aviation maintenance industry, and suggests pertinent measures. These statistic data and suggested measures will provide technical basis for the government to guide the industry development and the enterprises to plan for their own development, actively boost the sustained, healthy, and stable development of the civil aviation maintenance industry of China.
Acknowledgement
We are thankful for the help from the experts of the Flying Standard Division, CAAC in the process of program planning and design, and the support from the local administration airworthiness maintenance division, the airlines and the maintenance providers in data collection and statistics.
