Centralized management of maintenance and materials for commercial aircraft fleets

A method of managing maintenance of fleet vehicles for multiple customers, comprising the steps of:

• (A) collecting data related to the operation of the vehicles including collecting said data while said vehicles are in transit;
• (B) converting the data collected in step (A) into maintenance information useful in managing maintenance for the vehicles;
• (C) accessing the maintenance information at a central operations center;
• and,
• (D) managing a plurality of vehicle maintenance providers from the operations center using the maintenance information accessed in step (C).

A method of centrally managing the maintenance of a commercial fleet aircraft for customers, comprising the steps of:

• (A) contracting from a central operations center with a plurality of maintenance, repair and overhaul organizations (MROs) to provide maintenance service for the aircraft, said maintenance comprising a plurality of aircraft systems that constitute an individual aircraft;
• (B) contracting from a central operations center with a plurality of part suppliers to provide parts required for supporting the maintenance provided by the MROs;
• (C) collecting and storing maintenance information at said central operations center useful in managing the maintenance, said maintenance information including real-time status of said plurality of aircraft systems including in-flight status, at least a portion of said maintenance information collected from the aircraft while the aircraft is in flight;
• (D) accessing the maintenance information at said central operations center;
• and,
• (E) managing the MROs and the part suppliers from the central operations center using the information accessed in step (D).

A system for managing maintenance of commercial aircraft fleets, comprising:

• an on-board aircraft system for collecting data relating to the operational status of each aircraft in flight comprising said commercial aircraft fleets and wirelessly transmitting the data for each aircraft while in flight to a central operations center;
• said central operations center for receiving and converting the data into information useful for managing the maintenance of each aircraft, and for managing each of a plurality of maintenance service providers;
• and,
• a shared communications network connecting the operations center with customers comprising the commercial aircraft fleet operators and each of said plurality of maintenance service providers.