Commercial aircraft lease-by-the-hour maintenance economics

Honeywell leases brakes to airlines, gets paid per landing, and so has incentive to design long-life brakes. Pratt & Whitney and GE (or brokerage firms) do the same with engines on a power-by-the-hour basis. Trend extending toward aircraft-by-the-hour leasing.

Here's how they commercially handle brake wear in the commercial airlines. United or American or whatever — they don't own the brakes. Honeywell, who makes the brakes, leases the brakes to the airline, and if they wear out quickly, Honeywell has to provide more brakes under contract. If you're the mechanic working for United or American and you look at it and decide it needs new brakes, that doesn't cost the airline anything except the labor to replace the brakes. Honeywell pays for the parts. So Honeywell has an incentive to develop brakes with long lifetime, and the airline knows exactly how much it's spending on brakes for every landing because they're paying by the landing.