Performance · Availability

28 Juillet 2026

Reducing groundings (AOG) through the digitalisation of maintenance. Every unplanned hour on the ground weighs on your costs and your operations. Digitalising airworthiness and maintenance tracking is the most direct lever to improve fleet availability.

In aviation, the problem is often summed up in one sentence: an aircraft only earns money when it flies. Grounding – the famous AOG (Aircraft On Ground) – is the number one enemy of fleet profitability. Yet a significant share of these groundings is not due to the failure itself, but to what surrounds it: a missed due date, a part ordered too late, a document that cannot be found, an unavailable workshop resource.

AOG An unplanned grounding combines direct costs (parts, emergency labour, express shipping) and far heavier indirect costs: cancelled flights, replacement aircraft, degraded customer commitment. It is on these indirect costs that digitalisation acts most.

Where do groundings really come from?

Beyond technical chance, four organisational causes come up again and again:

Poorly anticipated due dates: an inspection or a life limit that falls due without having been prepared, for lack of an alert.
Long-lead parts: unique serialised components, life-limited parts (LLP) ordered too late.
Scattered documentation: time lost searching for the right task card, the right manual, the right history.
Lack of visibility on resources: workshop, tooling or staff unavailable when needed.

What these four causes have in common: they are about information, not mechanics. That is exactly where a digital system makes the difference.

Five digitalisation levers to gain availability

1. Automatic due-date alerts

No more manual tracking in spreadsheets. The system calculates the next inspections from each aircraft's actual potentials and alerts before the due date – turning a suffered emergency into planned maintenance.

2. Ageing simulation & anticipation

By projecting wear and upcoming due dates, you group interventions, order parts on time and choose the best grounding slot rather than enduring it.

3. Tracking sensitive & life-limited parts

Flagging components close to their cycle limit, securing strategic stock and anticipating supplier purchases avoids the "waiting for part" grounding, one of the longest.

4. Centralised documentation & the electronic Tech Log

All the documentation attached to the aircraft, accessible instantly, and a journey log kept up to date as close as possible to the aircraft: less time lost, fewer input errors, traceability that follows the aircraft throughout its life.

5. Airworthiness ↔ workshop interconnection

When the work order issued by the CAMO feeds the workshop directly and potentials are recalculated when the inspection is closed, you remove the re-keying and back-and-forth that lengthen every intervention.

From corrective to predictive maintenance

Digitalisation also opens the way to exploiting operating data (hours, cycles, parameters) to spot weak signals and plan at the most opportune moment. You then move from a "repair when it breaks" logic to an "intervene before it breaks" logic – the best way to make unplanned groundings disappear.

Concretely, where to start?

No need to transform everything at once. The most profitable is to start with airworthiness tracking and due-date alerts – that is where most avoidable groundings are decided – then extend to workshop management and documentation. This is the logic of the TracingFlight suite: TracingNav to anticipate groundings, TracingLine to optimise the workshop, TracingDocs for documentation – three interconnected building blocks.

How many groundings could you avoid?

See in 30 minutes how to anticipate your due dates and make your availability reliable.

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Frequently asked questions

What is an AOG in aviation?

AOG means "Aircraft On Ground": an aircraft grounded and unavailable for operations, usually because of a technical or maintenance problem. An unplanned AOG generates direct costs (parts, labour, emergency shipping) and above all indirect costs (cancelled flights, replacement aircraft).

How does maintenance software reduce groundings?

By turning suffered groundings into planned maintenance: automatic due-date alerts, anticipation of potentials, tracking of life-limited parts, centralised documentation and interconnection between airworthiness and workshop reduce waiting times and errors.

Should all maintenance be digitalised at once?

No. The most effective approach is to start with airworthiness tracking and due-date alerts, where avoidable groundings are concentrated, then gradually extend to workshop management and documentation.

What is the difference between preventive and predictive maintenance?

Preventive maintenance follows a calendar or potentials set in advance; predictive maintenance uses actual operating data to detect weak signals and intervene at the optimal moment, further reducing unplanned groundings.