Singapore Airlines First Customer of Boeing Airplane Health
Management Service
SEATTLE, Feb. 23, 2004 -- Boeing [NYSE: BA] and Singapore Airlines
today announced Singapore Air as the first customer for a Boeing
in-flight airplane monitoring system that will help airlines reduce
flight-schedule interruptions.
Boeing Commercial Aviation Services has been developing the
service, known as Airplane Health Management (AHM), since 2002. Air
France, American Airlines and Japan Airlines have worked with
Boeing as partners during the development and testing. Those
airlines have validated the system's effectiveness during the past
several months.
"AHM leverages Boeing's vast technical resources and airplane
knowledge to provide value to our airline customers," said Boeing
AHM Program Director Robert Manelski. "It will increase airlines'
operational efficiency and reduce their costs.
"We are excited to have Singapore join our list of innovative
airlines using AHM," Manelski added. "It further validates our
investment in this capability."
Singapore Airlines will conduct a three-month trial, during which
it will assess AHM's capability and fit within its operation.
"We are pleased to participate in this evaluation, which will
provide our maintenance personnel with more effective real-time
defect analysis," said Singapore Airlines Senior Vice President of
Engineering Mervyn Sirisena. "AHM will allow our maintenance
stations to prepare for rectification well ahead of aircraft
arrival, leading to fewer flight disruptions for technical
reasons."
During a flight, AHM relays information, in real time, about the
airplane's systems to an airline's ground personnel. That data can
prepare maintenance crews to make needed repairs after the airplane
lands, which can help reduce airplane dispatch delays.
The information should also allow airlines to reduce their
non-routine repairs and would support fleet-reliability programs by
identifying recurring faults and trends.
Boeing is offering AHM in three releases. Release 1.0, available in
April, will involve the reporting of fault data from an airplane's
central maintenance computer. Release 2.0 will use "snapshots" of
systems from the airplane condition monitoring system. Release 3.0,
due in late 2005, will use a continuous stream of data taken during
the entire flight.
AHM is part of a growing family of offerings from Boeing Commercial
Aviation Services. Other products include a maintenance management
software system specifically tailored to the air transport
industry; a software module called Allowable Configuration Manager
that centralizes configuration management via a Web-browser-based
illustrated parts catalog and provisioning files; and an expanding
document management system that currently includes Boeing Portable
Maintenance Aid and Boeing Digital Technical Documents.
Singapore Airlines is one of the world's leading passenger and
cargo carriers. The carrier is renowned for its combination of
excellent customer service, dedicated employees and top-flight
management. Boeing 747s and 777s comprise nearly 90 percent of the
Singapore Airlines fleet.
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