Definition
An Approved Maintenance Programme is the per-aircraft maintenance bible. Under EASA Regulation (EU) 1321/2014 Part-M M.A.302, every aircraft must have an AMP approved by the competent authority (or, for Part-ML aircraft up to 2,730 kg, declared by the owner). The AMP is built from the manufacturer's recommendations (the Maintenance Planning Document or MPD, the Maintenance Review Board Report or MRBR for transport-category aircraft), supplemented by mandatory continuing-airworthiness information (CMRs, ALIs, FALs, fuel-tank-system ICA), and adjusted for the operator's actual usage profile and operating environment.
The AMP defines, for the specific aircraft, every recurring task: scheduled inspections (A, B, C, D checks for transport-category; equivalent intervals for general aviation), component replacements (life-limited parts at their cycles or flight-hours limit, time-controlled components at their TBO), special detailed inspections (corrosion CPCP, fatigue inspection programs, supplemental structural inspections), and condition-monitored items. For each task, the AMP specifies the interval (calendar, flight hours, cycles, or whichever comes first), the source document (manufacturer task card, AD, SB), and any operator-specific deviation that has been approved.
The AMP is not static. It must be reviewed at defined intervals — under EASA, normally at least annually by the CAMO — and revised when the manufacturer issues new revisions to the MPD/MRBR, when a new AD or mandatory SB is issued, when an LLP limit is changed, or when the operator's experience demonstrates that an interval should be tightened or extended. Revisions go through an approval cycle with the competent authority before taking effect; operators that fly aircraft with stale AMPs accumulate findings that compound under audit.
The FAA equivalent for Part 121 (scheduled airline) operators is the Continuous Airworthiness Maintenance Program (CAMP) under §121.367, with the supporting Maintenance Time Limits Manual and Operations Specifications. Part 135 commercial operators have a similar requirement under §135.411, depending on the aircraft and the operator's certification basis. Part 91 general aviation does not require a formal Approved Maintenance Programme — instead, the operator complies with §91.409 (annual inspection or progressive inspection) and the manufacturer's recommended maintenance schedule.
Why It Matters for Flight Schools
For CAMOs and operators, the AMP is simultaneously the legal commitment to the regulator and the operational planning document for the maintenance department. Every scheduled task on the maintenance calendar comes from the AMP — directly or via a derived inspection package — and every operator-deviation from manufacturer recommendation has to be traceable to an AMP entry that has the deviation approved.
The failure mode that most commonly afflicts AMPs is drift. The operator's actual usage profile changes — short-sector training operations that put more cycles on the gear and fewer hours on the engine than the original AMP assumed — and the AMP is not revised to reflect the change. The result is either over-maintenance (cycles-driven tasks coming due before their hours-driven counterpart is approached) or, in the worse case, under-maintenance (an interval-extension that the actual usage profile no longer justifies). AMP-revision discipline is the antidote, and it is the discipline most schools' CAMOs lack.
How Aviatize Handles This
Aviatize's maintenance control module is built around the AMP as the source of every scheduled task. The platform stores the AMP per aircraft as a structured collection of tasks, intervals, source references (MPD task numbers, AD identifiers, SB identifiers), and any operator deviations that have been approved. As flight-hours, cycles, and calendar time accrue, the next-due date for each task is projected automatically, and the maintenance department sees the upcoming workload as a forward-looking schedule rather than a queue of overdue items.
For AMP-revision discipline, Aviatize captures every revision with its effective date, scope of change, and approval reference. When a manufacturer MPD revision triggers an AMP update, the affected tasks across the fleet are flagged for review, and the CAMO postholder can see the full impact (how many aircraft, which tasks, what new intervals) before approving the revision into operation. This is the planning capability the regulator audits for, and the kind of visibility that paper-based AMP management cannot deliver.