Foreign Object Damage - Studies On FOD

Studies On FOD

There have only been two detailed studies of the economic cost of FOD for civil airline operations. The first was by Brad Bachtel of Boeing, who published a value of $4 billion USD per year. This top-down value was for several years the standard industry figure for the cost of FOD. The second work (2007) was by Iain McCreary from the consultancy Insight SRI Ltd. This more detailed report offered a first-cut of the cost of FOD, based on a bottom-up analysis of airline maintenance log records. Here, data was broken into Per Flight Direct Costs and Per Flight Indirect Costs for the top 300 global airports, with detailed footnotes on the supporting data. The Insight SRI research was a standard reference for 2007-2009 as it was the only source presenting costs and thus was quoted by regulators, airports, and technology providers alike.

However, while that 2007 Insight SRI paper remains the best free public source of data, the new analysis (2010) from Insight SRI offers new numbers. The author of the new report (not free) says "Readers are cautioned not to rely on or in the future refer to numbers from the 2007-08 Insight SRI paper‘The Economic Cost of FOD to Airlines’. This earlier effort was ‘The’ first document detailing the direct and indirect cost of FOD that was based on airline maintenance data (the entire document was a single page of data, followed by 8 pages of footnotes)."

Per Flight Direct Costs of $26 are calculated by considering engine maintenance spending, tire replacements, and aircraft body damage.

Per Flight Indirect Costs include a total of 31 individual categories:

1. Airport efficiency losses
2. Carbon / Environmental issues
3. Change of aircraft
4. Close airport
5. Close runway
6. Corporate manslaughter/criminal liability
7. Cost of corrective action
8. Cost of hiring and training replacement
9. Cost of rental or lease of replacement equipment
10. Cost of restoration of order
11. Cost of the investigation
12. Delay for planes in air
13. Delays at gate
14. Fines and citations
15. Fuel efficiency losses
16. Hotels
17. In-air go-around
18. Increased insurance premiums
19. Increased operating costs on remaining equipment
20. Insurance deductibles
21. Legal fees resulting
22. Liability claims in excess of insurance
23. Loss of aircraft
24. Loss of business and damage to reputation
25. Loss of productivity of injured personnel
26. Loss of spares or specialized equipment
27. Lost time and overtime
28. Missed connections
29. Morale
30. Reaction by crews leading to disruption of schedule
31. Replacement flights on other carriers
32. Scheduled maintenance
33. Unscheduled maintenance

The study concludes that when these indirect costs are added, then the cost of FOD increases by a multiple of up to 10x.

Eurocontrol and the FAA are both studying FOD. Eurocontrol released a preliminary assessment of FOD Detection technologies in 2006, while the FAA is conducting trials of the four leading systems from Qinetiq (PVD Providence T F Green Airport), Stratech (ORD Chicago O'Hare Airport), Xsight Systems (BOS Boston Logan Airport), and Trex Aviation Systems (ORD Chicago O'Hare Airport) during 2007 and 2008. Results of this study should be published in 2009.