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Aviation History
1989
1989 - 0482.PDF
Atlas Airline Maintenance for ... Air France 747, A300, A300-600, CF6-50. Components: 747 (42 per cent) Alitalia DC-10, APUs for DC-10 and A300. Components: 747 (42 per cent), DC-10 (79 per cent), A300/A310 (14 per cent) Iberia 747, JT8D. Components DC-10 (2 per cent), A300/A310 (16 per cent) Lufthansa 747, A300, A300-600, JT9D, CF6-50. Components: DC-10 (2 per cent), A300/A310 (66 per cent) Sabena A310 (from 1990), APUs for 747, 727, 737, A310. Components: 747 (16 per cent), DC-10 (17 per cent), A3OO/A310 (4 per cent) KSSU Airline Maintenance for ... KLM 747, Fokker 100, CF6, Tay. Components: 747, A310, Fokker 100 SAS A300 (though SAS no longer operates them), JT9Ds (these are only on KLM's six oldest 747s, which will have been replaced by CF6-powered fleet in 1990). Components: A300/A310 Swissair DC-10, A310, JT9D-7R4, Fokker 100 landing gear. Components: DC-10, A310 UTA APU all types, landing gear all types except Fokker 100. Components: 747, DC-10 This Lufthansa 747 is in a Frankfurt hangar, but Lufthansa's heavy Atlas 747 work is done at its Hamburg engineering base Soon the group will have to make its deci sion about 767s, and within a year or so it will know whether the MD-11 or the A340 is to be a candidate as a KSSU aircraft. KLM's choice of DC-10 replacement will probably, be the largest single influence on KSSU's future shape. There is a distinctly probable Atlas/KSSU link on the horizon, in the shape of the MD-11. Swissair will have a fleet of them, and so will Alitalia. Each may be the only airline in its group to own the type. Swissair is preparing to have major maintenance capability for the MD-11, and it makes sense to discuss sharing capabilities and specific tasks with a very near neighbour. However, the arrangement need not be within the ambit of either of the maintenance groups. Because of their different management and financial techniques it might make more sense for the airlines to reach an agreement between themselves. Atlas Atlas was founded for exactly the same reasons as KSSU, but two years earlier. Founding member airlines Air France, Alitalia, Lufthansa, and Sabena signed a letter of intent in 1968 to set up the organisation, and the following year they signed the protocol to integrate the 747-100 into the partnership. The DC-10 became an Atlas aeroplane in 1971, and was integrated into the fleet two years later. An impressive list of type integrations (and planned integrations) followed: 1974, the A300; 1976, Concorde and the 747-200; 1984, the A310; 1986, the 747-300; 1987, the A300-600; 1989, the 747-400. 1992 will see the integration of the A340 (this has already been decided). Atlas divides its activities into three sections: project engineering, which con sists of defining the Atlas standards and specifications for the new integrated air craft; production, which embraces the overhaul of airframes, engines, and components, and also materials provisioning and shop engineering; and operations, comprising simulator training and route documentation. Crew training for specific types is another area where shared facilities are an obvious efficiency and investment cost-saver. Route documentation, however, is an interesting Atlas task, because it is not usually type- specific, and therefore could be done in part nership with anyone. The new protocol signed early this month did not change anything fundamentally. It was really a renewal. However, Atlas execu tives talked of increased system flexibility (new forms of co-operation, fast adaptation to new requirements), and productivity improvement (more in-house competition and an incentive settlement system). Other plans for the future concerned administrative improvements. In-house competition (bidding for work between Atlas partners which maintain the same type) is unique to Atlas, claims Jean- Peter Jansen, the partnership's product management executive. He says that KSSU, because of its man-hour-swapping operation, has a simpler administration but not the same efficiency incentive. Within Atlas, jobs have a contract price, and there is a free- market price for work for third parties, when it can be taken on. It is easy to see the efficiencies, like econ omies of scale, created by a partnership, but would it be cheaper to put work out to large organisations or airlines which have both the economies of scale and the need to bid competitively for work? Jansen says that cost comparison with the outside organisations "is always tricky". On simple costing, he says, it can look quite attractive, but "on trying it you find the real cost is not that simple". All of the airline chiefs gathered for the protocol-signing ceremony agreed that a primary reason for staying in the group was guaranteed quality. Lack of quality means unnecessary, costly time on the ground, points out Atlas chief and Lufthansa deputy chairman Reinhardt Abraham. "We are paying for security," states Sabena chairman van Rafelghem. "Within Atlas we can guar antee that." E 28 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL, 25 February 1989
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