Use of a nominal group technique in the exploration of safety hazards arising from the outsourcing of aircraft maintenance

Airlines today focus on their core competencies and resort to external resources, e.g. outsourcing, for operations that fall beyond the scope of these core competencies. Aircraft maintenance is one of the primary services outsourced by airlines. Aircraft maintenance is a major field of operation that affects safety. This study sets out to identify hazards that are likely to occur when airlines outsource aircraft maintenance operations, as well as the causes of these hazards and their impact on safety. Qualitative research design was preferred for the purpose of this study, where the data was collected through a nominal group technique with the participation of subject experts selected by purposive sampling. The inductive approach was adopted for data analysis. The study reveals thirteen themes that may potentially affect aviation safety. The outsourcing of aircraft maintenance by airlines in order to lower maintenance costs and to reduce the time during which aircraft remain idle for maintenance place cost and time pressures on MRO providers, which eventually leads to potential threats arising from the human resources factor of MRO providers.