AA rushes to fix wiring issues in AB6 fleet

[FWAAA]

From today's WSJ:

American Rushes to Complete Repairs

By ANDY PASZTOR
May 8, 2008; Page B4

AMR Corp.'s American Airlines is scrambling to finish wiring repairs on a group of jetliners once again, but this time there are no arguments with federal regulators and the carrier isn't taking planes out of service to complete the work.

The fixes, affecting more than three dozen Airbus A300 aircraft, highlight the often-subjective nature of compromises struck between airlines and regulators over the details of safety-compliance issues. The latest moves also indicate American officials and Federal Aviation Administration managers are seeking to ratchet down rhetoric sparked by their recent high-profile disputes over maintenance directives. Both sides are reverting to traditional cooperative arrangements to comply with safety mandates while keeping planes in operation whenever possible.

In the past week or so, special teams of American mechanics have performed maintenance on the company's A300 widebody jets to comply with a safety directive intended to prevent wire damage and potential electrical shorts in front portions of the wings and engine mounts. The original FAA mandate, dating to 2002, called for repetitive inspections and repairs to guard against loss of electrical power or other functions.

The A300 work comes in the wake of last month's turmoil sparked by overdue wiring fixes that temporarily grounded Fort Worth, Texas-based American's fleet of about 300 smaller MD-80 aircraft and ended up disrupting travel plans for some 300,000 passengers.

This time, FAA managers approved an alternate compliance timetable for A300s, under which the airline can keep flying all those planes while it gradually fixes them. The work is being done overnight at American's hub at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Remainder of story at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1210215929...=googlenews_wsj

Looks like this turned out completely different from the MD-80 fiasco.

 

[Bob Owens]

From today's WSJ:



Remainder of story at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1210215929...=googlenews_wsj

Looks like this turned out completely different from the MD-80 fiasco.

In the past week or so, special teams of American mechanics have performed maintenance on the company's A300 widebody jets to comply with a safety directive intended to prevent wire damage and potential electrical shorts in front portions of the wings and engine mounts.

In a report presented to Transportation Secretary Mary Peters last week, the FAA indicated that American mechanics completed the same wiring fixes flawlessly on a separate fleet of MD-80 jets they maintained for Allegiant Air, according to people familiar with the matter. A spokeswoman for Las Vegas-based Allegiant confirmed that American did the work on roughly half of the company's 37 MD-80 aircraft and the FAA found no discrepancies. The same mechanics presumably worked on both fleets.

I knew something was up with this.

The company is using this as a pretense of violating our contract and sending guys from Tulsa to do line station work.

From what I've heard the job on the generator cables is not that complex or involved, certainly easier than the feeder cable mod we did on the same aircraft a few years ago.

 

[NewHampshire Black Bears]

I knew something was up with this.

The company is using this as a pretense of violating our contract and sending guys from Tulsa to do line station work.

From what I've heard the job on the generator cables is not that complex or involved, certainly easier than the feeder cable mod we did on the same aircraft a few years ago.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bob,

one thing to bring in the OKIE's(into the Big Apple) if the Overtime lists....Day off/Early Call and Hold over has been exhausted,...............and thats on a daily BASIS only.

(At least the good ol' boys will get some of the BEST Pizza in the world, (while they're hear), plus other types of "Eye-Tailian" food)

Other than that, a "by pass" is a By pass"

"Sign up" for free $$$.(may take 3 years to win the Grievence)

 

[TIME FOR CHANGE]

The unions position on this would be

"they can do that"

:down:

 

[FWAAA]

Excellent fact-checking by the Rupert Murdoch Wall Street Journal. For sure, very pedantic of me to point it out but illustrative of today's lazy-ass kids, including the reporter, Andy Pasztor and his editors: last time I checked, 34 is not quite three dozen, let alone "more than three dozen."

Maybe an Australian Dozen is different from an American Dozen?

 

[ual777fan]

Excellent fact-checking by the Rupert Murdoch Wall Street Journal. For sure, very pedantic of me to point it out but illustrative of today's lazy-ass kids, including the reporter, Andy Pasztor and his editors: last time I checked, 34 is not quite three dozen, let alone "more than three dozen."

Maybe an Australian Dozen is different from an American Dozen?

I'll know Murdoch is really running the WSJ when they start using the bakers dozen.

 

[eolesen]

The company is using this as a pretense of violating our contract and sending guys from Tulsa to do line station work.

From what I've heard the job on the generator cables is not that complex or involved, certainly easier than the feeder cable mod we did on the same aircraft a few years ago.

If Allegiant's aircraft met the MD80 AD with flying colors, then perhaps the TUL guys actually do a better job of doing work to spec than the guys at JFK... If the company had proof of which MD80s passed and where that work was done, the TWU probably agreed to field work being done by TUL mechs in order to avoid yet another debacle which put its members in a bad light.

 

[TWU-GOTTA-GO]

If Allegiant's aircraft met the MD80 AD with flying colors, then perhaps the TUL guys actually do a better job of doing work to spec than the guys at JFK... If the company had proof of which MD80s passed and where that work was done, the TWU probably agreed to field work being done by TUL mechs in order to avoid yet another debacle which put its members in a bad light.

Wouldn't the Allegiant planes be under FAR 145 and the AMT's would be working off the actual AD versus a company generated ECO? BTW...Tulsa did all this work the first time on the 80's.

 

[jersey777]

Excellent fact-checking by the Rupert Murdoch Wall Street Journal. For sure, very pedantic of me to point it out but illustrative of today's lazy-ass kids, including the reporter, Andy Pasztor and his editors: last time I checked, 34 is not quite three dozen, let alone "more than three dozen."

Maybe an Australian Dozen is different from an American Dozen?

But saying it his way has way more dramatic effect...more like prose than non-fiction. I saw a blurb in the USAToday this week about the faa allowing pax to bring certain types of oxygen on board the aircraft...then came the phrase "This comes less then three months after a passenger from Haiti was denied oxygen on an American Airlines flight and subsequently died." Another case of drama.

 

[MiAAmi]

3 A300's are to be returned to leasing company this year. Has anyone heard about an accelerated rate of retirement for the A300's due to a reduction in capacity?

 

[Skymess]

3 A300's are to be returned to leasing company this year. Has anyone heard about an accelerated rate of retirement for the A300's due to a reduction in capacity?

Haven't heard about an accelerated retirement rate.
The domestic capacity will be cut. Few a-300's are doing domestic work.
AA hasn't made any announcements of a possible A-300 replacement. It's going to take something with a similar amount of cargo space.

 

[ual777fan]

Haven't heard about an accelerated retirement rate.
The domestic capacity will be cut. Few a-300's are doing domestic work.
AA hasn't made any announcements of a possible A-300 replacement. It's going to take something with a similar amount of cargo space.

Then AA is probably looking at the 787 and the A330. The A330 uses a modified version of the basic A300 haul, so it should have roughly the same cargo capabilities. The 787, unlike the 767, might actually be wide enough, but there's a really really long line and the program has been plagued with delays.

 

[eolesen]

787 isn't made for flying short haul. It's made for 767-300 type missions and longer.

I'd be shocked if AA ever bought another Airbus product after the way they blamed AA for the tail separation accident. They could give the aircraft to AA and I think Corporate would still turn them away.

It's been said many times before that the perfect aircraft for cargo in the Caribbean is the A-model 777. It's intended to be a DC10 replacement. UA uses them on ORD-HNL, and IIRC, that's about the extent of its range. They're available direct from Boeing on request, or on the used market. Either way, it would be a lot better for cockpit, cabin, and maintenance commonality to have A models as a subfleet than it would be to replace a small Airbus subfleet with yet another small Airbus subfleet....

The other question is does AA really need widebodies to/from the Caribbean? Some markets carry a lot of bags, but cargo alone isn't enough of a justification to fly a dedicated widebody fleet. At some point, fuel surcharges on air freight are going to drive cargo away from aircraft and back onto ships. IIRC, surface transport MIA-SJU takes about 60 hours vs. 8 hours dock to dock. How much of what's flown today could survive another two days in transit?...

 

[Skymess]

787 isn't made for flying short haul. It's made for 767-300 type missions and longer.

I'd be shocked if AA ever bought another Airbus product after the way they blamed AA for the tail separation accident. They could give the aircraft to AA and I think Corporate would still turn them away.

It's been said many times before that the perfect aircraft for cargo in the Caribbean is the A-model 777. It's intended to be a DC10 replacement. UA uses them on ORD-HNL, and IIRC, that's about the extent of its range. They're available direct from Boeing on request, or on the used market. Either way, it would be a lot better for cockpit, cabin, and maintenance commonality to have A models as a subfleet than it would be to replace a small Airbus subfleet with yet another small Airbus subfleet....

The other question is does AA really need widebodies to/from the Caribbean? Some markets carry a lot of bags, but cargo alone isn't enough of a justification to fly a dedicated widebody fleet. At some point, fuel surcharges on air freight are going to drive cargo away from aircraft and back onto ships. IIRC, surface transport MIA-SJU takes about 60 hours vs. 8 hours dock to dock. How much of what's flown today could survive another two days in transit?...

I'd be shocked if we tried flying narrowbodies to Dingo or Haiti. I'd stay as faaaaaar away from those flights as I possibly could if it came to that. Boarding would be an absolute nightare with the baggage problem.

 

[MiAAmi]

I'd be shocked if we tried flying narrowbodies to Dingo or Haiti. I'd stay as faaaaaar away from those flights as I possibly could if it came to that. Boarding would be an absolute nightare with the baggage problem.

We have flown 727's 737's and 757's in the not so distant past to both PAP and SDQ. boarding is not a nightmare. In Miami they have a blue shirt checking bags at the aircraft door so things go pretty smoothly. Actually with the numberous mechanical delays with the A300, those flights can be more of a nightmare.