The Deutsche Bahn in Germany is pretty much doing that. They pay for maintenance, the Government pays for repair. So they save money on maintenance and let the Government pay for the repairs.

And it shows, in case anybody was wondering. The percentage of trains that break down in the middle of the field, that have to detach a few carriages in some random train station so they can keep going with the rest of the train, or that barely make it to the destination but then are stuck there unable to move is truly astounding.

Planes have been falling out of the sky due to commercial reasoning. And most maintenance is done the way it is because it had to be put in to law to force a businesses to do it.