North-South Airline Company Review

BACKGROUND OF THE BUSINESS

Northern Airlines merged with Southeast Airlines to create the fourth largest U.S. provider in January 2008. The brand-new North-- South Airline company inherited both an aging fleet of Boeing 727-300 aircraft and Stephen Ruth. Stephen was a hard previous Secretary of the Navy who actioned in as new president and chairman of the board. Peg Jones on the other hand is the vice president for operations and upkeep.

SPECIFY THE ISSUE

Stephen's objective is to tailor the company's monetary performance towards stability and continuous growth.

This made him concern that the aging fleet of Boeing 727-300 aircraft's maintenance expense may hinder awareness of this objective.

The considerable distinction in the reported B727-300 maintenance expenses (from ATA Kind 41s) both in the airframe and engine locations between Northern Airlines and Southeast Airlines made him to penetrate through Peg Jones' help on determining the quantitative and visual report of the following: Connection of the typical fleet age to direct airframe upkeep expenses Linear relationship between the average fleet age and direct engine maintenance expenses

CASE TRUTHS AND DETAILS (INCLUDING LIMITATIONS & & RESTRAINTS)

In addition to the aging solutions below, Peg constructed the average age of Northern and Southeast B727-300 fleets by quarter given that the introduction of that aircraft to service by each airline in late 1993 and early 1994 respectively.

Get quality help now

writer-Charlotte

Verified writer

Proficient in: Company

4.7 (348)

“ Amazing as always, gave her a week to finish a big assignment and came through way ahead of time. ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

• TOTAL FLEET HOURS = TOTAL DAYS IN SERVICE X AVERAGE DAILY UTILIZATION
• TYPICAL AGE OF EACH FLEET = OVERALL FLEET HOURS FLOWN # OF AIRCRAFT IN SERVICE
• AVERAGE DAILY USAGE = OVERALL FLEET HOURS FLOWN.
  Get to Know The Price Estimate For Your Paper

  Topic

  Deadline: 10 days left

  Number of pages

  Email Invalid email

  By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy. We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

  "You must agree to out terms of services and privacy policy"

  Write my paper

  You won’t be charged yet!

• OVERALL DAYS IN SERVICE.

In getting the average utilization, Peg used the actual fleet hours flown on September 30, 2007 from Northern and Southeast data, and dividing by the overall days in service for all aircraft at that time. The typical utilization for Southeast and Northern were 8.3 and 8.7 hours per day respectively. In addition, readily available cost data consisting of the average fleet age were computed for each yearly period ending at the end of very first quarter.

Business asset depreciation depends on the cost of asset and its useful life. What is distinct about aircraft depreciation is that each component of an airplane is depreciated at different rates and depreciation methods. The North-South Airline problem for this instance may also be resolved by using depreciation methods as follows: straight line with salvage value method = Asset Cost/ Useful Life The advantage of using the straight line method involves the ease of calculating the annual depreciation amount.

The disadvantage of using the straight line method is that this method does not consider the rate the asset will actually depreciate in value. Declining balance method = Remaining Asset Value x Depreciation Rate The advantage of using this method is that it accelerates the depreciation recorded early in the asset's life and thus reduces the taxable income and the taxes owed during the early years. The disadvantage is that the method can be applied only when there is a residual value of the asset.

Quantitative method/s employed and the solution to the problem

Northern Airlines Data

AIRFRAME

ENGINE

Southern Airlines Data

AIRFRAME

Southeast Airline—airframe maintenance cost:

• Cost = 4.60 + 0 (airframe age) = 4.60
• Coefficient of determination = 0.39
• Coefficient of correlation = 0.62

ENGINE

Northern Airline—airframe maintenance cost:

• Cost _ 36.10 _ 0.0025 (airframe age)
• Coefficient of determination _ 0.7694
• Coefficient of correlation _ 0.8771

Northern Airline—engine maintenance cost:

• Cost _ 20.57 _ 0.0026 (airframe age)
• Coefficient of determination _ 0.6124
• Coefficient of correlation _ 0.7825

Southeast Airline—engine maintenance cost:

• Cost __0.671 _ 0.0041 (airframe age)
• Coefficient of determination _ 0.4599
• Coefficient of correlation _ 0.6782

Ethical considerations

DEPRECIATION USED = SAFETY

The units of production method involves determining the cost to depreciate and dividing that amount by the estimated production units the company expects to manufacture over the life of the asset. The advantages of using the units of production method include the ease of calculating the annual depreciation amount and that the depreciation is matched to the production quantity. The disadvantage of using the units of production method is that this method assumes the asset will depreciate evenly over its productive life.

The graphs below portray both the actual data and the regression lines for airframe and engine maintenance costs for both airlines.Note that the two graphs have been drawn to the same scale to facilitate comparisons between the two airlines.

• Northern Airline: There seem to be modest correlations between maintenance costs and airframe age for Northern Airline. There is certainly reason to conclude, however, that airframe age is not the only important factor.
• Southeast Airline: The relationships between maintenance costs and airframe age for Southeast Airline are much less well defined. It is even more obvious that airframe age is not the only important factor—perhaps not even the most important factor.

Overall conclusion

Overall, it would seem that:

1. Northern Airline has the smallest variance in maintenance costs, indicating that the day-to-day management of maintenance is working pretty well.
2. Maintenance costs seem to be more a function of airline than of airframe age.
3. The airframe and engine maintenance costs for Southeast Airline are not only lower but more nearly similar than those for Northern Airline, but, from the graphs at least, appear to be rising more sharply with age.
4. From an overall perspective, it appears that Southeast Airline may perform more efficiently on sporadic or emergency repairs, and Northern Airline may place more emphasis on preventive maintenance.

Ms. Young’s report should conclude that:

1. There is evidence to suggest that maintenance costs could be made to be a function of airframe age by implementing more effective management practices.
2. The difference between maintenance procedures of the two airlines should be investigated.
3. The data with which she is presently working do not provide conclusive results.