Company Looks To Drive Down Costs, Increase Availability

AgustaWestland has introduced what it says are major enhancements to the Maintenance Program for the AW139 intermediate twin-engine helicopter, which will reduce maintenance and operating costs and enable operators to further increase aircraft availability and utilization. 

Thanks to the proven capabilities and safety demonstrated over nine years of operation with an in service fleet of now more than 580 helicopters that have accumulated approximately 750,000 flight hours so far, AW139 operators can now benefit from a new progressive maintenance program as well as life extensions on major transmission components.

The new progressive maintenance program allows more efficient maintenance planning, especially for those operators who need maximum availability for daylight missions and can resort to maintenance at night, such as in the offshore oil and gas support market. The introduction of the progressive maintenance program has been achieved as a result of the strong cooperation and partnership set up between the company, through its Customer Support & Training and Engineering departments, and customers via a dedicated Maintenance Improvement Team. The new maintenance plan will reduce direct maintenance costs and further increase aircraft availability and utilization.

In a continuing effort to drive down AW139 operating costs AgustaWestland has been able to extend the Time Between Overhaul (TBO) for the AW139’s Main Gearbox from the current 5000 flight hours to 6000 flight hours and the Tail and Intermediate Gearboxes from 5000 flight hours to 7500 flight hours. The 20% and 50% increase in TBO will be a significant benefit to operators in reducing their operating costs as well as making the aircraft even more competitive in the market it now dominates.

(Image provided by AgustaWestland)

FMI: www.agustawestland.com