Aircraft Maintenance Efficiency
Transpn Res.-A, Vol. 32, No. 4, pp. 261±269, 1998
# 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved
Printed in Great Britain
0965-8564/98 $19.00+0.00
Pergamon
PII: S0965-8564(97)00013-X
12 3
ASSESSING THE RELATIVE EFFICIENCY OF AIRCRAFT
MAINTENANCE TECHNOLOGIES: AN APPLICATION OF DATA
ENVELOPMENT ANALYSIS
MILO W. PECK, JR.
Department of Accounting, Fair®eld University, Fair®eld, CT 06430, U.S.A.
CARL A. SCHERAGA*
Department of Management, Fair®eld University, Fair®eld, CT 06430, U.S.A.
and
RUSSELL P. BOISJOLY
Dean and Department of Finance, School of Business, Fair®eld University, Fair®eld, CT 06430, U.S.A.
(Received 17 October 1996; in revised form 04 March 1997)
AbstractÐThis study focuses on discretionary maintenance strategies and their relationship to aircraft reliability, as measured by the percentage of scheduled ¯ights delayed because of mechanical problems. The methodology of Data Envelopment Analysis is employed to identify the various strategies employed by the major airlines over the time period 1990±1994. Additionally, this methodology allows for a normative assessment as to which strategies are relatively ecient. Furthermore, the speci®c strategies utilized by ecient and inecient airlines can be compared at a micro-level and thus quanti®able recommendations for the latter group can be suggested. # 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved
1. INTRODUCTION
There has been much concern of late that rising costs and shrinking pro®t margins may have undesirable eects on the ability of airlines to maintain acceptable levels of safety performance.
Speci®cally, such concern calls into question discretionary managerial strategies on the part of airline executives with regard to the performance of aircraft maintenance. The researcher is challenged to identify and quantify those discretionary strategies most likely to impact ®rm and industry levels of maintenance eectiveness. Furthermore, once the array of
# 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved
Printed in Great Britain
0965-8564/98 $19.00+0.00
Pergamon
PII: S0965-8564(97)00013-X
12 3
ASSESSING THE RELATIVE EFFICIENCY OF AIRCRAFT
MAINTENANCE TECHNOLOGIES: AN APPLICATION OF DATA
ENVELOPMENT ANALYSIS
MILO W. PECK, JR.
Department of Accounting, Fair®eld University, Fair®eld, CT 06430, U.S.A.
CARL A. SCHERAGA*
Department of Management, Fair®eld University, Fair®eld, CT 06430, U.S.A.
and
RUSSELL P. BOISJOLY
Dean and Department of Finance, School of Business, Fair®eld University, Fair®eld, CT 06430, U.S.A.
(Received 17 October 1996; in revised form 04 March 1997)
AbstractÐThis study focuses on discretionary maintenance strategies and their relationship to aircraft reliability, as measured by the percentage of scheduled ¯ights delayed because of mechanical problems. The methodology of Data Envelopment Analysis is employed to identify the various strategies employed by the major airlines over the time period 1990±1994. Additionally, this methodology allows for a normative assessment as to which strategies are relatively ecient. Furthermore, the speci®c strategies utilized by ecient and inecient airlines can be compared at a micro-level and thus quanti®able recommendations for the latter group can be suggested. # 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved
1. INTRODUCTION
There has been much concern of late that rising costs and shrinking pro®t margins may have undesirable eects on the ability of airlines to maintain acceptable levels of safety performance.
Speci®cally, such concern calls into question discretionary managerial strategies on the part of airline executives with regard to the performance of aircraft maintenance. The researcher is challenged to identify and quantify those discretionary strategies most likely to impact ®rm and industry levels of maintenance eectiveness. Furthermore, once the array of
References: Ali, A. and Seiford, L. (1993) The mathematical programming approach to e ciency analysis. In The Measurement of Productive E ciency: Techniques and Applications, eds H Barnett, A. and Higgins, M. (1989) Airline safety: the last decade. Management Science 35 (1), 1±21. 1 Consulting (1995) Integrated Data Envelopment Analysis System: Version 5.1. Amherst, MA. Oster, C. V., Jr. and Zorn, C. K. (1989) Airline deregulation: is it still safe to ¯y? In Transportation Safety in an Age of Deregulation, eds L Rose, N. L. (1989) Financial in¯uences on airline safety. In Transportation Safety in an Age of Deregulation, eds L. Moses and I Rose, N. L. (1992) Fear of ¯ying? economic analyses of airline safety. Journal of Economic Perspectives 6 (2), 75±94. U.S. Department of Transportation (1990±1994) Air Travel Consumer Report, O ce of Consumer A€airs, Washington, DC. U.S. Department of Transportation (1990±1994) Data Bank 28DS: T-100 Domestic Segment Data. O ce of Airline Statistics, Data Administration Division DAI-20, Washington, DC. U.S. Department of Transportation (1990±1994) Form 41 Financial: Data Bank 10. O ce of Airline Statistics, Data Administration Division DAI-20, Washington, DC. The analysis in this study employed the input-oriented data envelopment model as speci®ed by Ali and Seiford (1993).