New maintenance interval escalation for Bombardier's CRJ family in the US

Bombardier has just received Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) approval for a new maintenance intervals escalation for its most recent CRJ aircraft, whether they are already in service or are in production. The new programme actually only relates to the CRJ700s, CRJ900s and CRJ1000s.

The line maintenance inspection (A-check) interval has therefore been extended to 800 flight hours and the heavy maintenance inspection (C-check) interval to 8 000 flight hours.

"We are thrilled that our operators are benefitting from our continuous improvement mindset as with this evolution, the CRJ Series operators can now take advantage of 14 per cent less maintenance days, meaning more days of revenue flying", said Charles Comtois, Head of CRJ Series Program, Bombardier Commercial Aircraft.

The CRJ700, CRJ900 and CRJ1000 now features the longest intervals for regional aircraft. Moreover, maintenance intervals have practically doubled since the introduction of the new generation of CRJs (CRJ700) in 1997 (400 hours for A-checks and 4500 hours for major inspections).

Another intervals escalation had been put in place in 2011 to achieve the previous intervals (650 flight hours and 6500 flight hours respectively).