Your paper must contain at least one accurately documented (APA style) parenthetical citation for each source listed on your reference page.

Aircraft in the industry are known to operate well past their intended useful life. On average, commercial airframes in the US have an age of about 14 years, and it is not uncommon to see those same aircraft in circulation for 25 to 30 years (CNN, 2010). Continued airworthiness of these aircraft is becoming a growing concern for maintenance operations. The problem is these aging aircraft structures and components require more upkeep outside of regular production planning and scheduling workloads, resulting in more man-hours required to address nonroutine maintenance problems and extended downtime for completion of maintenance checks (Pyles, 2003; IATA, 2018).

According to The Research and Technology Organisation (RTO) of NATO (2001), maintenance of older aircraft structures significantly reduces service availability and raises the costs incurred to get those aircraft back into production. The resultant effects places undue stress on maintenance operations. To counteract the challenges organizations, face in dealing with ensuring continued airworthiness of aging aircraft, the process for taking on unscheduled maintenance tasks should be reexamined. This paper will further explore the impact of aging aircraft on maintenance planning and workloads and recommend steps to aid in addressing issues effectively and efficiently.