Q&A with Evans Kihara, Acting
Technical Director at KQ
What goes into aircraft maintenance at
KQ? Do we handle everything in-house? Evans Kihara,
Acting Technical Director at Kenya Airways tells us more.
Define aircraft maintenance?
Aircraft maintenance
is really the process of restoring aircraft systems and
components to their original condition. It includes
aligning critical requirements such as technical literature,
equipment, machinery, and most importantly, qualified team
members. In the industry, maintenance activities are often referred to as “maintenance
events”.
Give a brief overview of KQ's
maintenance approach and what needs to be in place on order to carry out effective
aircraft maintenance?
Aircraft maintenance is driven by
aircraft flying hours or calendar
days – whichever comes first. Maintenance events are guided by an
approved regulatory document referred to as the Approved Maintenance Programme which
stipulates a number of things including: the time interval between
maintenance events, the particular tasks to be undertaken, and the
required skills and labour needed to
carry out the task. The document also stipulates the necessary equipment and
machinery, as well as the spares and materials that will be needed.
Maintenance involves inspections, repair, replacement, modifications and
overhaul tasks as guided by the programme.
Kenya Airways is a Maintenance
Repair and Overhaul (MRO) service provider approved by Kenya Civil Aviation
Authority and European Union Aviation Safety Agency. If that is the case,
why are some KQ aircraft maintained outside of Kenya from time
to time?
As stated above, aircraft
maintenance is driven by flight hours and calendar days. Depending on
how particular aircrafts operate and accumulate hours,
multiple maintenance events may occur at the same time. This means we need
to engage other MROs in locations such as Dubai and Jordan. It is worth
noting that we offload maintenance events to other MROs while at the same
time onboarding other operators’ planes when we have spare capacity.
What proportion of our fleet do we
maintain elsewhere?
All maintenance activities on the
Boeing 737 and the Embraer 190 aircraft are performed in-house unless
we are slot-restricted. Maintenance for the B787 is undertaken internally, apart
from the major investment-heavy events that occur every three years. For
example, 12 out of 13 maintenance events of a typical B787 aircraft
are performed internally in a three-year cycle. The heavier “13th” event is undertaken by
select MROs after extensive cost negotiations. Roughly 93% of all B787
maintenance is performed locally while 100% are
carried out internally for the B737NG and E190.
We also provide MRO services for external
parties. How does this benefit KQ and the broader African aviation industry?
Kenya has a significant number of planes
requiring maintenance beyond the types that KQ operate. We offer various
maintenance services to local operators who may not have the capacity to
undertake the maintenance investment KQ has already made. Within the region we
offer maintenance services to African operators of the B737NG and Embraer
fleets. We also offer support services to for new operators starting aircraft
operations by seconding our staff to run their operations while coaching local
staff to take over. This has gone a long way to foster growth of quality
maintenance within Africa through sharing of resources and knowledge
There was a recent concern via social media
about the use of what appeared to be "duct tape" on parts of one of
our aircraft. Please demystify this practice.
The tape can withstand the external
air pressure during flight without debonding or coming
off. The approved documentation stipulates the interval for inspecting
the interim repair solution as well as interval for refreshing the tape. The
processes of releasing an aircraft for flight have rigorous checks that
quickly and easily identify situations that are “NO GO” (situations of no
release). Release of any aircraft to
fly is strongly regulated globally and does not
differ across operators. Click more