Nippon Cargo Airlines’ parent, NYK Group, has outlined for the Japanese government a maintenance oversight plan to get the carrier’s freighters back to service.
The airline, at the behest of Japan’s civil aviation authority, ordered a suspension of all aircraft operations on June 17 after an “inappropriate” April 3 maintenance record related to aircraft parts lubrication was discovered at Narita airport. Since July 6, only two of NCA’s 11 freighters have been cleared to resume flights.
NCA’s freighter fleet consists of five B747-400s and eight B747-8s and serves 15 airports across Asia, the United States and Europe.
NYK acknowledged in a statement to Japan’s minister of land, infrastructure, transportation and tourism on Friday that increased air cargo volumes and subsequent heightened demand for freighter lift, along with a succession of newly built B747-8s joining the fleet, left NCA’s maintenance shop overwhelmed and contributed to the falsification of records.
“The number of aircraft operated was approximately 1.6 times higher in FY 2016 than in FY 2011, while the number of personnel in the maintenance division has only slightly increased,” NYK said. “As a result, it is considered that the number of employees in the maintenance department was getting gradually insufficient compared to the size of flight operations.”
In April, NYK shifted five maintenance staff from its passenger airline, All Nippon Airways, to NCA and another three will be added to the cargo airline starting Sept. 1.
NYK said it’s also considering just operating NCA’s new B747-8 freighters in the future, but provided no further details.
Late last week, NCA apologized to its customers for the grounding of its freighters due to the maintenance debacle.
“We will unite all staff and management to fully implement the preventive measures for restarting a safe operation with a goal to ‘recreate NCA from zero,’” the airline said.
NYK said it will “supervise and support NCA in implementing the improvement measures” to prevent a recurrence.