Mike Roemer, Senior Manager of Digital Fleet Management at United Airlines, shared insights into the transformative role of predictive maintenance in managing one of the world’s largest airline fleets at last week’s Predictive Aircraft Maintenance (PAM) Conference in Dublin.
Roemer outlined how United Airlines’ TechOps division leverages advanced digital tools and analytics to ensure the reliability of its 970 mainline aircraft which fly over three million hours annually.
“Operating one of the world’s largest networks creates unique opportunities, and challenges,” Roemer said. “Predictive maintenance has become a proven and trusted tool for addressing fleet reliability at United Airlines.”
Roemer explained to the audience that the airline’s early success with predictive tools has led to an increase in investments in people and platforms.
The CHIME platform (Condition and Health Indication, Monitoring and Engineering) was highlighted as a cornerstone of this effort. “This centralised system generates actionable alerts, tracks performance metrics, and integrates data from third-party sources to address critical subsystems, such as flight controls, landing gear, and electrical power,” Roemer explained.
“We have invested a lot and we’re fully bought in to our transformation,” Roemer said. “We’re excited on where we’re going with predictive aircraft maintenance – it is such a huge focus for us.”
Since implementing predictive maintenance strategies, Roemer shared that United Airlines has achieved remarkable outcomes, including avoiding over 300 out-of-service events, preventing over 1,000 delays and cancellations, and significantly reducing emissions by 130,000 tonnes.
“Predictive maintenance has been transformative to our operation, and this is just the beginning,” Roemer concluded.
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