Boeing’s Dreamliners have been cleared to fly by the Federal Aviation Administration, but the the aerospace company will likely feel the weight of the repairs for sometime, considering each plane’s maintenance cost about $465,000.
According to Aviation Pros, after more than 14 weeks of groundings, approvals and tests, the FAA released figures that show the group estimates the total cost of switching out the plane’s lithium ion batteries, boxes and venting tubes came out to be $464,678 per plane. United Airlines alone had to shell out $2.8 million for its six repair projects.
Still, the FAA directive states that the high cost of the modifications “may be covered under warranty” from Boeing. Experts say they wouldn’t be surprised if Boeing ended up picking up the tab for all of its customers. If Boeing decided to do so, it would set the company back a little more than $23 million for the repairs that were made on all 50 Dreamliners currently flying.
What really sent costs up was the duration the planes were sitting idle in hangars and how this affected carriers’ revenues, the news source stated. Boeing CEO Jim McNerney recently spoke at a conference with analysts, where he stated that Boeing had “no contractual obligations” to compensate customers for a slack in revenue.
“But having said that, there are a few places where we’ll work with our customers,” he asserted.
United’s lost revenues rose to about $11 million, according to the company’s latest quarterly earnings, however this was much lower than other airlines that were flying Dreamliners at the time of the battery problems. The company could rely on several other plane models and routes to keep flights on schedule, creating a buffer that kept revenue losses down.
According to the media outlet, the latest directive from the FAA also states that investigators are still unable to find an exact cause for the smoking battery, despite having “considered all potential causal factors of the two recent battery incidents.”
Each modification takes roughly five days to complete. At this rate, it will take until June for all Dreamliners to be up in the air once again.
The latest round of quarterly reports showed that maintenance costs had an impact on several carriers – including those that don’t have Dreamliners in their fleet. According to Aviation Week, low-cost carrier JetBlue Airways spent $20 million on maintenance in the first quarter after undertaking “engine performance restorations” of its Embraer 190 aircraft.
Mark Powers, JetBlue CEO, said the engine maintenance will enhance the overall operational reliability and time on-wing. However, these weren’t the only details the company gave as to the extent of the repairs that need to be made. Powers did say, however, that the repairs focus mostly on “peripheral items,” rather than the core function of the engine. The company has already performed 12 restoration projects, and said it will complete 30 more this year.
With maintenance affecting otherwise successful carriers, it appears companies could greatly benefit from focusing on product testing early on to keep maintenance costs down in the future.