Maintenance, Sustainability, and the Future of Air Travel: Insights from American Airlines

A group of American Airlines engineering professionals recently fielded questions from Avionics about their maintenance processes, sustainability, and the future of air travel. The airline has positioned itself to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, an ambitious goal that involves more efficient aircraft, predictive maintenance, and logistical wizardry, all while demand for commercial air travel is expected to continue to rise. Responses, compiled by several subject matter experts at American Airlines, are below, edited for clarity.

Predictive Maintenance

Avionics International: Is American using predictive maintenance and health monitoring tools to streamline its fleet maintenance needs? If so, how has this improved efficiency?

American Airlines: American uses health monitoring tools provided by Airbus, Boeing, and other aircraft component manufacturers. Our Predictive Maintenance program has been extremely successful since it began in 2020. All our predictive maintenance is completed in-house by our Predictive Maintenance Engineering (PME) team. With the benefit of significant data and their robust engineering knowledge, the PME team identifies adverse data trends and recommends component removal before failure. By doing this work in-house, we prioritize issues specific to our fleet and operational needs. In 2022 alone, we created more than 1,000 maintenance actions, leading to months of aircraft availability being returned to operation, hundreds of avoided delays, and dozens of prevented cancellations. This represented significant cost savings for the airline.

Sustainability

AI: How is American working toward sustainable future operations? Is the most progress to be found in technology like efficient wing and fuselage design, renewable fuels, or both?

AA: American Airlines is working to make our operations more sustainable with more fuel-efficient aircraft powered increasingly by low-carbon fuel and new technology. To achieve net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050, we set a number of ambitious intermediate targets. We are working to drive progress in several key areas—some of which we can influence directly, and some of which will require action and collaboration within the aviation industry, across sectors, and by policymakers.

AI: What can be done to existing aircraft to improve fuel efficiency in the near term?

AA: One of the most important aspects of reducing our carbon emissions is the use of SAF. We used more than 2.5 million gallons of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in 2022, nearly doubling our usage year over year. We’ve signed SAF agreements for more than 620 million gallons, including with Aemetis and Gevo to help us fulfill roughly 20% of our goal to replace 10% of our jet fuel with SAF in 2030.

The age of our fleet is another vital factor in reducing emissions since newer aircraft are more fuel efficient. As of 2022, more than 50% of our fleet is less than 10 years old with an average fleet age of 12 years, the youngest among U.S. network carriers.

AI: Are there near-term operational changes that can improve fuel efficiency and reduce emissions?

AA: From an operations standpoint, American built a technology called smart gating that reduces taxiway congestion and the time aircraft spend waiting for available gates. The tool uses real-time routing, runway information, and other data, along with machine learning, to automatically assign aircraft to the nearest available gate. Smart gating is currently in use at several hubs and is projected to save more than 1.4 million gallons of fuel annually—enough to fill up 29 Boeing 777-300 aircraft. This reduces carbon dioxide emissions by more than 13,400 metric tons annually.

Fleet

AI: Is there any realistic pathway to a supersonic passenger aircraft? If so, when might we see that technology? Same question for electric aircraft.

AA: American is proud to have invested in several forward-thinking companies, reflecting our commitment to the future of advanced air mobility and travel. Although there is still work that needs to be done, we are encouraged by the progress Boom Supersonic has made in the development of supersonic travel and Vertical Aerospace’s progress in the development of eVTOL technology.