Even before the first of 14 new CRJ-200s arrives on property this month, Endeavor’s Technical Services team got to work. Over the last several weeks, the group has worked diligently, preparing the plane to fly the line: Maintenance records are being analyzed, work procedures written, manuals updated. Working largely behind the scenes, Technical Services takes charge of configuring the new aircraft to meet Endeavor’s standards of safety and reliability.

“Almost every Technical Services department is involved in some way,” said Greg Budinger, Director, Technical Services. “We aren’t out there working on the planes, we aren’t out there flying them—but we are managing them to make sure we have safe and reliable aircraft and that those on the front lines have all they need to do their jobs.”

With six different departments and 42 employees, the team’s leadership brings more than
150 collective years of aviation experience to the table. Whether training technicians,
managing and optimizing maintenance programs, analyzing aircraft write-ups to improve performance metrics, or engineering solutions to mitigate issues, the departments work cross-functionally to ensure each of our aircraft is ready to fly.

As 2017 gears up to be a year focused on growth and operational performance, Budinger says that Technical Services will play a key role in achieving this year’s goals. In addition to their work integrating the new CRJ-200 aircraft, Technical Services will remain focused on reliability improvement. This is especially key for the Fleet Management and Reliability
department, which gathers and analyzes on-time performance data to help determine and
mitigate the drivers of delays and cancellations.

“We work closely with Flight Ops, Inflight and Ground Ops to determine what can be changed to solve the issues,” said Roger Lien, Manager, Fleet Management and Reliability, who then works with Engineering and Maintenance to implement these changes. “We look at what we can do to modify the aircraft, programs, or procedures in order to resolve problems and make sure everyone has what they need to do their job better and improve the operation.”

“Our priority is the safety and profitability of the aircraft, and there are a lot of reliability drivers that we are leading within Delta Connection,” added Heinz Ahlers, Manager, Engineering. “Delta often leans on us to test and set the standard, and there are many projects that we implement and get approved that are then pushed out to the other DC carriers.”

With safety and reliability at the center of all they do, Technical Services is proud to continue to drive optimization, standardization, and efficiency at Endeavor in 2017 – and beyond.

“Endeavor has tough goals to meet this year in terms of operational performance, but we have a strong, experienced team in place,” said Budinger. “We are ready for the challenge.”