Hawaiian Airlines currently has at least 52 aircraft of its 61 jets chilling out and lined up perfectly on Honolulu’s tarmac, “waiting for the moment we can fly again and reconnect Hawai‘i to the world.”
As the only major Hawai‘i-based airline, images of the HA fleet on the ground and not in the sky are pretty surreal.
However, the images have an element of beauty, power and of course, amazing angles!
Unlike when you park your car at the international airport long term parking (gosh, we miss those days!), leaving it to relax and unwind for two or three weeks, a pretty hefty maintenance schedule is required, when it comes to a fleet of aircraft.
While Hawaiian Airlines rotate certain aircraft in a significantly reduced schedule, its parked planes continue to get plenty of care from the mechanics.
The roughly 500-person maintenance team – from mechanics to engineers and supply agents – is working around the clock to properly service the aircraft and keep the fleet in tip-top flying shape, ready to bring the full Hawaiian Airlines network back online when the world is ready to do so.
During a visit to the Honolulu maintenance hangar, Jonathan Yang, director of line maintenance, inspects slight damage to an aircraft’s shell.
His team is hard at work behind the scenes, servicing the fleet, including reporting, mapping out and repairing any fuselage damage.
Day and night, maintenance teams are ensuring that all Hawaiian Airlines planes remain in tip-top condition.
They’ve got their tools in hand to perform both multi-level checks required by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), as well as the aircraft and engine manufacturers, and daily maintenance on the engines and airframe. This work is done regardless of whether the aircraft has flown.
The HA mechanics clock in a collective 120 hours each day just performing overnight checks on the 717s fleet.
On the transpacific fleet, mechanics conduct various checks scheduled on weekly, bimonthly, monthly, tri-monthly, and annual intervals.
“Aircraft maintenance tasks run on clocks. Even though we are flying a reduced flight schedule, the clock keeps ticking and mostly does not care if an airplane is in the air or not,”
Jonathan Yang, director of line maintenance at Hawaiian.
In addition to the scheduled tasks, which include routine maintenance from checking tire pressures and maintaining oil levels, the airline’s engineers and mechanics are focused on improving the in-flight experience for its guests, by making modifications to optimise A321neo cabin temperatures – which is estimated to take mechanics some 140-180 hours per aircraft.
Hawaiian is also conducting robust cabin interior inspections, repair of seats and tray tables and deep cleaning throughout.
“The maintenance of our planes has continued as we transition to putting them to bed, so to speak. They are resting for the big awakening, which will hopefully come sooner rather than later. I have no doubt that our team at Hawaiian Airlines will roar back to full operations soon and continue our honored tradition of sharing Hawai‘i with the world.”
Joe Mooney, line aircraft mechanic at Hawaiian
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