SAN FRANCISCO, July 17 (Xinhua) -- China's Xiamen Airlines becomes the country's first air carrier to sign for Boeing Company's advanced aircraft maintenance service, Boeing said on Tuesday.

Xiamen Airlines, the fifth largest carrier in China, placed the order for the Boeing Optimized Maintenance Program (OMP) during the ongoing 2018 Farnborough International Airshow in England.

The OMP, powered by AnalytX technology of the top U.S. aircraft manufacturer, uses analytics to evaluate and analyze an airline's maintenance program and improves the operator maintenance experience through improved maintenance recommendations.

Boeing said the program can cut scheduled maintenance labor and material cost by more than 20 percent and associated ground time by more than 30 percent on average, while improving fleet on time performance and in-service maintenance activities.

Boeing technical consultants will review all recommendations with the airline's engineering team to fit its specific needs, as to ensure its safe, reliable, and cost-effective airplane performance.

"We are pleased to be the first in the country to utilize Optimized Maintenance Program's ability to use data to tailor a maintenance program specific to our needs," said Zhao Dong, president and CEO of Xiamen Airlines.

Ihssane Mounir, senior vice president of Commercial Sales and Marketing at Boeing, said the OMP will offer innovative data analytics capabilities to anticipate Xiamen Airlines' needs and help it drive down maintenance costs.

Apart from its existing 168-strong Boeing fleet, Xiamen Airlines has maintained an additional 66 planes on order, which consists of one 737NG, 55 737 MAX 8s, and 10 737 MAX 10s.

The Chinese carrier also purchased a 737 MAX and Next Generation 737 Simulator Services Package that includes hardware, software, data and a suite of tools to enhance its digital capability.

Xiamen Airlines operates 300 domestic and 60 international and regional routes, flying 26 million passengers every year.