Sparrow Airlines is planning to reduce its costs by cleaning its planes' engines once a month, rather than the industry standard of every six months. With cleaner engines, Sparrow can postpone engine overhauls, which take planes out of service for up to 18 months. Furthermore, cleaning an engine reduces its fuel consumption by roughly 1. 2 percent. The airline's plan assumes that ["the cost of monthly cleaning of an airplane's engines is not significantly greater in the long run than is the cost of an engine overhaul", 'Sparrow Airlines has had greater problems with engine overhauls and fuel consumption than other airlines have', 'engine cleaning does not remove an airplane from service', 'cleaning engines once a month will give Sparrow Airlines a competitive advantage over other airlines']