JAL has been using Bridgestone’s tire wear prediction technology to plan tire replacement operations on mainline aircraft including the A350-900 since May 2024, the two companies announced on July 17, 2024. The technology use’s expansion comes approximately four years after JAL’s subsidiary J-Air started using it for its all-Embraer E-Jet fleet in May 2025.
As part of the revised tire replacement operations, JAL provides Bridgestone with flight data for each of the relevant aircraft. Bridgestone, which is the world’s largest tire maker, in turn analyzes the data and provides JAL with predicted level of wear and expected timeline for when replacements will be needed.
“Although this initiative may seem simple at first glance, it is actually a very difficult challenge, and it is a prime example of DX at our company,” said Ryo Tamura, the President of JAL’s maintenance-focused subsidiary JAL Engineering. The statement explains that the rate of tire wear varies depending on the aircraft, airports it operates to and from, and other factors, making it difficult to predict when replacement is required.
By expanding the initiative to larger aircraft, JAL looks to achieve similar outcomes as it did with rolling out the technology at J-Air, including more efficient tire replacement operations and tire inventory management and less overtime work for maintenance staff by reducing the occurrence of situations where multiple tire replacements are unexpectedly required to be done at once.
