Aeromexico has completed its first in-house Boeing 787-8 C check, making it "one of the first airlines worldwide to accomplish such as service check in-house," says Jorge Jacome Armida, t..he airline"™s senior vice president of maintenance and engineering.
The maintenance check for the 787, which occurs every three years, is a bit different than that of other aircraft. The aircraft"™s carbon-fiber structure requires "different inspection and repair procedures, as well as tooling," Jacome says.
To take advantage of the aircraft"™s downtime, Aeromexico also simultaneously incorporated 55 reliability-improvement service bulletins.
To prepare for the maintenance event, which took 13 days and 6,030 maintenance man hours to complete, Aeromexico developed a detailed plan. It acquired the necessary tooling at its Mexico City International Airport hangar, and trained staff in advance.
For any major aircraft maintenance check, surprises can surface when opening panels and exposing normally unexposed parts of the aircraft. For this 787 C check, "There were a few critical inspections for which we had to be ready to react if discrepancies were found, such as the horizontal stabilizer bolts, which require special tooling for replacement," Jacome says.
