In a climate of declining budgets, Air Mobility Command (AMC) is pursuing strategies to reduce aircraft operating and support costs without jeopardizing readiness. To assist AMC with its effort, RAND Project AIR FORCE (PAF) considered a number of options targeting unit-level costs. The project team reviewed commercial carrier aircraft maintenance approaches and had discussions with subject-matter experts familiar with Air Force aircraft maintenance practices and policies. Based on those interactions, PAF identified consolidation of aircraft maintenance occupational specialties as having the potential for reducing personnel requirements and costs. The impact of Air Force specialty (AFS) consolidation on active-duty KC-135 maintenance personnel at MacDill, McConnell, and Fairchild Air Force Bases was modeled to address various questions in this report.

The current training requirements for Mobility Air Force (MAF) maintainers were reviewed, with a focus on those assigned to support KC-135 maintenance operations. The study team spoke with subject-matter experts to understand how MAF maintainers currently spend their time and developed scenarios of how maintainer training requirements would change following AFS consolidation.

The assessment suggests that combining KC-135 maintenance AFSs will require significant additional time on the part of maintainers to train, which will reduce maintainer availability to perform maintenance activities. The reduced availability of maintainers following consolidation is potentially offset by the improved utilization and effectiveness of maintainers. The findings suggest that consolidating KC-135 maintenance AFSs according to the construct analyzed would, in the long run, benefit AMC through greater readiness (as measured by sortie generation capability), reduced manpower requirements, or both.