U.S Airlines Outsource Majority of Repairs...

Source: MSNBC, BusinessWeek.com

U.S. airlines outsource majority of repairs
But oversight suffers when maintenance is sent abroad, some groups say


BusinessWeek.com




By Geri Smith and Justin Bachman
updated 11:58 a.m. CT, Tues., April. 15, 2008
Hangar No. 1 at San Salvador's airport is hopping. Technicians employed by jet maintenance contractor Aeroman swarm over Airbus planes belonging to JetBlue Airways, US Airways, and Ukraine's Donbassaero, checking electrical systems, replacing carpets, and examining engines and flaps for signs of corrosion or defects. Just outside, more jets from US Airways and Air Tanzania wait their turn. Why the rush to this tiny Central American country? Starting pay at Aeroman in El Salvador is around $4,500 a year, while veterans take home perhaps $15,000. In the U.S., airplane mechanics earn an average of $52,000 annually.

These days, Aeroman and companies like it have plenty of customers. As airlines scramble to cut costs, outsourced repair shops — both in the U.S. and abroad — now handle two-thirds of all maintenance for American carriers, the U.S. Transportation Department says, up from 30 percent in 1997. Airline maintenance has become a $42 billion-a-year business, with countries such as Dubai, China, Korea, and Singapore making enormous investments to attract such work. While there's some concern about the 4,181 maintenance operations in the U.S., the bigger worry is over the 700-plus foreign shops overseen by the Federal Aviation Administration. Beyond those, there are numerous other shops not certified by the FAA that offer airlines various maintenance services.

Irregular regulation
Unions, business-travel groups, and some members of Congress maintain that quality and regulatory oversight suffer when maintenance is sent offshore. Airlines are entrusting vital work, critics say, to companies abroad that the FAA doesn't have the resources to monitor effectively. "You can't keep track as these airline companies outsource to the Third World —there aren't enough FAA inspectors to cover El Salvador, South Korea, and China," says Jim Hoffa, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which represents United Airlines mechanics.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24068455/


Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24068455/

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By trying to screw the Unions, and save some bucks.. they have literally fucked themselves, and of course fucked all of us.

What don't we outsource these days?

If out-sourcing politicians improves things compared to chimpy & his minions...I'm all for it!

It's international mafias from here on in. Ruled by Banks and the Vatican.

You just wouldn't listen...and refused to deal with the 9/11 Omission. So, we've made our bed and now we're layin in it.

I guess we can thank Bill Clinton for this one. Clinton and his unratified WTO pact.

Which is a large part of the reason to outsource.

Kansas City Southern RR, wants to build a big maintenance facility south of the border for their locomotives and rolling stock. I assume other companies in the region are going to do likewise.

who are MUCH more problematic than the major foreign contractors who actually have something known as "strict oversight" in their countries.

In most of the civilized world airplane maintainence is considered a big deal and strictly regulated - in American you can check your own homework.

'Financial Fitness' host among victims of flight 261.

Staffers, listeners at radio stations KGO, KSFO mourn death of Cynthia Oti

Zachary Coile, OF THE EXAMINER STAFF

Tuesday, February 1, 2000

The crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261 off the Ventura County coast was a big story for Bay Area journalists. It also was a personal one for many of them - as well as a number of local investors.

As first reports trickled out an hour after the crash, reporters found out that one of their colleagues was likely on board: Cynthia Oti, a successful stockbroker and host of a nightly personal finance show on KSFO (560 AM).

It was news that also hit hard at the brokerage house where the popular radio host had worked since 1992.

A San Francisco resident, Oti was a securities trader with First Union Securities in The City who had written advice columns for San Francisco Focus magazine and the Hayward Daily Review. She was 44 years old.

More at:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/examiner/archive/2000/02/01/NEWS7393.dtl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Airlines_Flight_261

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That was an Airbus, btw, and its plastic-composite rudder fell off.

I wonder how many of those bemoaning the union workers' fates on this thread support UAW workers by purchasing cars made with their labor?

From my experience on other threads, the answer is: not so many. It's easy to make strident proclamations on a website, but actions are the only way to separate the poseurs from the supporters.

plastic-composite rudder?

Alska went down because of a jackscrew failure on its American made MD80. Where do you get Airbus?

on edit:

Unless you're talking about the AA flight that crashed in NYC?

Airbus 300, with conventional (not "fly-by-wire") controls. Everyone on board died (260 people) plus five more on the ground.

After take-off, the pilots encountered a wake vortex from a B-747 that had taken off a few minutes earlier. They performed extreme maneuvers with the rudder (shifting it rapidly from full deployment on one side to the other), and the resulting stress caused it and the vertical stabilizer to separate from the airframe.

Airbus said it was AA's fault for not training pilots to avoid such extreme movement of the rudder; AA said it was Airbus' fault for a weak design. Neither admitted they were wrong, but Airbus subsequently buttressed the stabilizer joint, and AA added extreme maneuver avoidance to its A300/A310 training.

That's "what on Earth" I'm talking about.