Investigation of aircraft maintenance costs in civil aviation sector by years : An application on a installed aircraft maintenance company in İstanbul

Today, millions of people use air transport. According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), in 2018, the number of passengers preferring the airline reached approximately 4.3 billion. In the same year, whereas; the total amount of cargo transported reached 62 million tons. Turkey has a vital share in the global aviation sector. Looking at the numbers in 2018, 210 million passengers preferred airline transport, which corresponds to approximately 2 million flights. In the same period, 3.8 million tons of cargo was transported by airline. With the increasing competition levels, there has been a significant increase in the number of aircrafts owned by different companies and institutions. The aircraft and equipment that is required to perform more flight activities every passing day, need to be checked frequently and some improvements should be made. In addition, it is necessary to check whether the accuracy and efficiency in the region where the maintenance activities are taking place is at the desired levels. Therefore, various types of airplanes come to maintenance and repair centers when they complete certain amount of flight times or in case of an unfortunate failure. For the centers performing maintenance and repair activities, it is vital to complete the maintenance as soon as possible by giving a limited time and space to the aircraft to be serviced.In this study, the reasons of the variations in the maintenance costs of the aircrafts that came to an aircraft maintenance company established in Istanbul between 2001-2019 were examined by using panel data analysis. Keywords: Panel data analysis, Civil aviation, Aircraft Maintenance.