Aircarft Economic

Part 1: Introduction

JetBlue Airways is one of the best low cost airlines operating domestically in United States of America (USA). It offers low fare flight ticket with good quality services, namely the point-to-point service for short and long haul route, free in-flight entertainment with leather seats and free refreshment on board. JetBlue has won the customer service distinctions by travel publications such as the Zagat Airline Survey and Conde Nast Traveler. (Professor McAfee, 2002)
Operating over 60 destinations in 20 states, Puerto Rico and 11 countries in the Caribbean and Latin America (Team A8 et al), JetBlue has now owned over 170 aircrafts to lead the network has brought the company to a point where they need to maximize their fleet utilization. One of the factors that are affecting airlines businesses is the Aircraft Maintenance Strategy by focusing on keeping the maintenance costs at minimum. Thus, it is appropriate for the company to assess their company’s maintenance strategy in order to run smoothly; two major subjects that need to be taken into account in assessing the strategy are the fleet and the customers.
Aircraft Maintenance Strategy is the combination between service, price, output or cost in isolation for the airline company. From the previous articles and journals on JetBlue, it can be concluded that the main maintenance cost drivers that will affect the operation are:
i. Fuel Cost - flight hours and flight cycle and also routes
ii. Labour Cost - material and labour cost
iii. Fleet Age - fleet composition and size
iv. Fixed and Variable Maintenance - commonality between airframes and engine













Part 3: JetBlue Maintenance Strategy

The maintenance strategy for JetBlue is affected by few maintenance cost drivers. Each of these provides different impact to the company.
3.1 Maintenance Cost Driver

There is four maintenance cost drive that will affect JetBlue maintenance strategy:
1. Fleet Types and... [continues]

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