Explainer

What Is an Aircraft Maintenance Program?

An aircraft maintenance program is the operator's own system for keeping an aircraft airworthy: what gets done, when, by whom, and how the operator checks that it works. Here is what a CAMP contains, how it differs from a Part 91 inspection program, where it comes from, and where task cards fit.

The Definition

The Operator's Program, Not the Manufacturer's

The manufacturer publishes recommendations. The operator decides what its aircraft are actually maintained to, and that decision, written down and followed, is the aircraft maintenance program (AMP). It is built from the manufacturer's data, and it can differ from it, but the responsibility for it sits with the operator.

The wording changes with the rulebook. Under FAA rules, a Part 121 or Part 135 operator has a maintenance program; an owner flying under Part 91 has an inspection program. The words are deliberately different, and AC 120-16G spends a table on the difference. Under EASA rules the term is the maintenance program, and the abbreviation AMP is the usual shorthand.

Part 121 and Part 135

What Is a CAMP?

CAMP stands for Continuous Airworthiness Maintenance Program. The FAA introduced the Continuous Airworthiness Program in a 1964 final rule, written in response to weaknesses found in air carrier maintenance programs during accident investigations, and AC 120-16G notes that it became known colloquially as a CAMP.

The rule itself is short. Sections 121.367 and 135.425 require each certificate holder to have an inspection program and a program covering other maintenance, preventive maintenance, and alterations, that ensures three things: the work is done under the certificate holder's manual, competent personnel and adequate facilities and equipment are provided, and each aircraft released to service is airworthy and properly maintained. For Part 135, the program applies to aircraft type certificated for ten or more passenger seats under § 135.411(a)(2), or to a certificate holder that elects it under § 135.411(b) or needs it under (d). Aircraft of nine seats or fewer are maintained under Parts 91 and 43 and the other sections named in § 135.411(a)(1), with an approved aircraft inspection program available under § 135.419.

The manual is where the program lives. Sections 121.369(b) and 135.427(b) require the manual to contain the programs and, at a minimum, the method of performing routine and nonroutine maintenance, the designation of required inspection items, who may perform inspections, buy-back procedures for reinspecting work, and instructions preventing anyone from inspecting their own work. The aircraft maintenance manual is the manufacturer's procedures; the operator's maintenance manual is a different document, and it is a company publication the operator is responsible for.

Per AC 120-16G

The Ten Program Elements

AC 120-16G, Air Carrier Maintenance Programs (4 January 2016), lists ten elements that make up an air carrier maintenance program. Inspection is part of the program, not a separate system.

Airworthiness responsibility
Air carrier maintenance manual
Air carrier maintenance organization
Accomplishment and approval of maintenance and alterations
Maintenance schedule
Required inspection items (RII)
Maintenance recordkeeping system
Contract maintenance
Personnel training
Continuing analysis and surveillance system (CASS)

The AC is guidance, one acceptable method rather than a rule, and it says so. Its objectives are the three in the rule: airworthy aircraft, work done under the manual, and competent people with adequate facilities. Two points matter to anyone who handles the documents. The maintenance schedule is the part that says what, how, and when. And the continuing analysis and surveillance system (CASS), required by §§ 121.373 and 135.431, is a closed loop of surveillance, analysis, corrective action, and followup, which is how the program is kept effective and how its schedule gets changed.

Who Approves It

Authorized, Not Approved

Searches for an “approved maintenance program” meet an FAA wrinkle. AC 120-16G states that the FAA does not approve a CAMP and that no regulation requires an approval. What the FAA does is issue operations specifications that authorize the carrier to use a maintenance program and the maintenance manual the rules require, and the FAA authorizes the maintenance schedule the same way, with the CASS watching its effectiveness. Under §§ 121.373(b) and 135.431(b), the FAA can require a change to a schedule or any other element found deficient.

Other regimes use the word approval for their own programs. A custom Part 91 inspection program goes to the FAA for approval under § 91.409(g). Which path applies to a given program is a question for the rule text and the authority, not for a summary.

Part 91

Inspection Program Options Under § 91.409

An owner or operator outside Parts 121 and 135 has no CAMP of its own. It selects an inspection program, and the choice depends on the aircraft:

Annual and 100-hour inspections: The baseline in § 91.409(a) and (b): an annual inspection within the preceding 12 calendar months, plus a 100-hour inspection if the aircraft carries a person for hire. Progressive inspection is an alternative under § 91.409(d).
A selected program for larger and turbine aircraft: Large airplanes, turbojet and turboprop multiengine airplanes, and turbine-powered rotorcraft fall under § 91.409(e): life-limited parts replaced on time, and inspection under a program selected under § 91.409(f). Turbine-powered rotorcraft owners may instead use the options in (a) through (d).
The four choices in § 91.409(f): A continuous airworthiness inspection program that is part of a CAMP in use by a Part 121 or 135 operator of that make and model; an approved inspection program under § 135.419 in use by a Part 135 operator; a current inspection program recommended by the manufacturer; or an owner-established program approved by the FAA under § 91.409(g).

Whichever program is chosen under § 91.409(f), the operator must identify it in the aircraft maintenance records, name the person responsible for scheduling the inspections, and make a copy available to the person doing the inspections. The effect is that the same manufacturer data that feeds an airline's CAMP reaches a Part 91 operator as the manufacturer-recommended inspection program, or as a CAMP-derived program borrowed from a carrier flying the same make and model.

A small fleet still has to keep that program in step with revisions. See technical publications for small fleets and keeping service bulletins and revisions current.

EASA

The Maintenance Program Under EASA Rules

EASA's rules for continuing airworthiness carry an Aircraft maintenance program provision of their own: M.A.302 in Part-M, with acceptable means of compliance and an appendix on the content of the program, and ML.A.302 in Part-ML. The acceptable means of compliance has long said a program should normally be based upon the maintenance review board report, the maintenance planning document, the relevant chapters of the maintenance manual, or other maintenance data containing scheduling information.

EASA's Easy Access Rules for Continuing Airworthiness (September 2025 edition) also carry Part-CAMO for continuing airworthiness management organizations. If you operate in the EU, read the current text of the rules for your organization type; the section numbers above are headings in that publication, not a map of who must do what. For the organization manuals that sit beside the program, see EASA MOE and CAME.

Where It Comes From

How the Program Is Derived

The operator's schedule starts from the manufacturer's data and narrows or extends it. The chain from MSG-3 to the MRB report to the planning document is in our MPD guide. What the operator adds, and what it may not touch, looks like this under AC 120-16G:

The manufacturer's baseline: The maintenance planning document or, where there is none, the maintenance manual's scheduling chapters. Tasks from the Maintenance Review Board Report sit alongside the airworthiness limitations. Our MPD guide covers where that data comes from.
Airworthiness limitations and CMRs: Not negotiable by the operator. AC 120-16G tells carriers to mark each certification maintenance requirement and airworthiness limitation in the schedule so nobody treats it as an ordinary interval.
Safety-significant MRB tasks: AC 120-16G says not to delete or change the scope of failure effect category 5 (evident safety) and 8 (hidden safety) tasks without the concurrence of the FAA Maintenance Review Board chairman and the manufacturer.
Airworthiness directives and service information: The schedule is expected to list ADs and service bulletins that become recurring tasks, alongside special inspections, checks, lubrication, and servicing.
The operator's own experience: The continuing analysis and surveillance system (CASS) is the AC's principal source of information on whether the schedule needs to change. A revision to the MRB report alone is not an approval basis to change the schedule.

Three document types sit under or beside this. The airworthiness limitations and the rest of the manufacturer's Instructions for Continued Airworthiness are the source. The operator's own manual, covered in operator maintenance manuals and § 43.13(c), is where the program is written down. And the minimum equipment list governs dispatch with inoperative items, which is a different document with a different approval. Part 121 and 135 operators also need documented safety management policy and procedures under 14 CFR part 5; see the SMS manual.

Reliability

The Reliability Program Link

Sections 119.49 and 121.135(b) allow a carrier to use standards for determining its maintenance time limitations. AC 120-16G calls those the regulatory basis of FAA-approved reliability programs, which grew up in the 1960s around failure rates and alert limits. It describes how the industry later moved to task-based logic: MSG-3 sets the initial scheduled maintenance requirements, but it does not say where to set task intervals or how to adjust them once the aircraft is in service.

That gap is what the operator's own data fills. FAA guidance on the subject is AC 120-17B, Reliability Program Methods. The practical point for documents: a reliability or CASS finding becomes a change to the schedule, and every change has to reach the manual, the cards, and the records together.

Task Cards

What Is an Aircraft Task Card?

“Aircraft task card” is the term most people search for; the AC uses work card and says job card and task card mean the same thing. Our task card explainer covers routine and non-routine cards, RII, and buy-back in more depth.

What it is: A work card, also called a job card or task card, is the instruction-and-record page for one unit of work: which task, on which aircraft, the steps or the reference to the maintenance manual procedure, and the sign-offs.
Where it sits: AC 120-16G treats work cards as part of the air carrier manual and program: the “what to do” and “how to do it”, which also control the work and document it for the maintenance records.
Task cards and the schedule: The AC advises identifying, on the maintenance schedule, the task or work card tied to each scheduled task, so an operator can show every scheduled task is accomplished.
Routine and non-routine: Scheduled tasks come from the program. Findings raised while working a card become non-routine work, which the manual also has to cover: § 121.369(b)(1) and § 135.427(b)(1) name the method of performing routine and nonroutine maintenance.

Who writes them. The operator. Cards are part of the operator's manual and program, so the operator owns their content and their revision. They are usually derived from the manufacturer's task in the maintenance manual, with the operator's own steps, sign-offs, and required inspection points added.

Are they mandated? Not by rule. AC 120-16G says work cards are not a specific regulatory requirement and have evolved as a best practice. In FAA Notice N 8900.632 (effective 17 June 2022, expired 17 June 2023), the FAA noted that its inspector guidance showed task cards as one means, but not the only means, of designating, performing, and documenting required inspections, and that this had led some inspectors to think cards were required. An operator may use another method if it satisfies §§ 121.369(b) or 135.427(b). Whatever the method, it has to be in the manual.