Delta TechOps expanding predictive maintenance capabilities with new Airbus partnership

Building on the foundation of innovative predictive maintenance successes in recent years, Delta is partnering with Airbus to make aviation maintenance more efficient and more economical for Delta Air Lines and operators worldwide through Delta TechOps, the maintenance, repair and overhaul provider business of Delta Air Lines.

 “This partnership with Airbus will further develop predictive maintenance capabilities, bringing the deep analytical prowess of Airbus’ Skywise platform in conjunction with the rich technical and operational knowledge of the Delta predictive maintenance team,” said Don Mitacek, Delta’s Senior Vice President – Technical Operations. “We look forward to significant enhancements of prediction accuracies through this combination.”

In 2015, Delta TechOps began working with Airbus to develop its initial predictive program, Prognostic Risk Management, by co-designing, testing and making improvement recommendations about some of its key features. 

In 2018, Delta signed a multi-year agreement with Airbus to use the Skywise Core Platform and Skywise Predictive Maintenance application. As the first major U.S. carrier to invest in the tool, Delta utilises Skywise on its A320 and A330 aircraft to track and analyse operations and performance data so it can assess the failure probabilities of aircraft parts to anticipate maintenance tasks before they’re needed.

Today, Delta has an internal team of over 20 employees who leverage the operational know-how and deep engineering skills of more than 10,000 professionals at Delta TechOps. Delta assures accuracy of the predictions through the bench testing of parts and components for the predicted fault.

With a success rate of over 95% for pending failure predictions, Delta’s predictive maintenance program is just another way Delta is building the world’s most reliable airline. And the proof is in the numbers. In 2010, Delta had more than 5,600 cancelations due to maintenance versus 2018, where Delta logged only 55 maintenance-related cancellations.