Aircraft Leasing and the Impact of Definitions on lease return.

Aircraft that are leased are done so as an investment for a return; this is important to always consider during a lease review as we have noted in prior posts –an airworthy aircraft might not necessarily meet lease return conditions.

To illustrate this,we can consider an aircraft that is leased for 6 years to IALTA Airlines –at delivery the aircraft will be maintained under an AMP (Approved Maintenance Plan) as per the Continued Airworthiness Management Organisation (CAMO) requires it and the National Aviation Authority (NAA) also.

The airline CAMO will over time change the maintenance plan, they may change it on induction to the fleet –this is called a bridging check when we transition from one maintenance plan to another. Often some additional tasks are required as the intervals between when they are required have changed on them.

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Aircraft Lease – Conditions and Requirements for repairs

The aircraft lease document is going to be complex and comprehensive in its content; it is aimed at always protecting asset value and the lessor.
When we read the lease document it is very important to not only understand the return conditions relating to a topic or condition; we need to understand first the definitions as this can change a simple term such as “Acceptable Repairs” into a conditional statement which we must evaluate and always consider.
We can consider an example here of how a term such as “Acceptable Repairs” might be defined in the below example –note how there are conditional statements about being flush, their inspection requirements, and documentation. You can see how a simple term now carries means we must apply against all “repairs” that we carry out before we even consider the repair conditions for return.

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Aircraft Maintenance Plans –Awareness of the intervals and tasks

An aircraft maintenance plan has several different sources that are used in creating it. When the sources are combined, they reflect that specific aircraft and so the maintenance plan is now customised accordingly. The multiple sources will determine tasks and apply instructions on when to carry these tasks out.

The tasks are from a multitude of sources such as Certification Maintenance Requirements (CMR) which are essential tasks to keep the aircraft safe and airworthy through to documents nonmandatory service bulletins (SB) or information letters.

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Aircraft Maintenance Plans –Specific modification requirements for an Aircraft

The aircraft is maintained by a maintenance plan and the plan is specifically tailored to that specific aircraft.

A company that operates multiple aircraft of the same type will have a majority of the maintenance plan commonly the same, but there are factors that influence the maintenance plan which means that each aircraft has its own specific plan.

If you look at a list of tasks for example in,then maintenance plan then there is often an “Applicability” column and registrations,or serial numbers are included so you can see which aircraft the tasks are for in the event that multiple aircraft are covered.

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Aircraft Reliability – Events & when do you require further analysis?

An aircraft operating will experience maintenance in two main categories:

Scheduled –that which is planned and controlled as per a maintenance plan to maintain airworthiness

.Unscheduled –these are the tasks where we do not plan the maintenance, it is the event of a condition or event.

It is a little more complex of course because not all non-scheduled maintenance is not expected –consider events such as a wheel change if a wheel is worn to the limits of service, or a therapeutic oxygen bottle being used for a passenger in distress. These items are not scheduled to occur, but they are not necessarily a concern for our reliability either.

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