maint?

[WorldTraveler]

Fuzzy math, they are still paying more for maintenance than they earn in insourcing.

Nice try though.

How about that engine that exploded on takeoff the other day, wonder if that is outsourced overhaul.

And I dont want your fuzzy math, I want exact dollar amounts, which would be in their 10k, why dont you show us the true costs?

it's only fuzzy for those who don't want to believe the truth. Some people don't want to accept the fact that a combination of insourcing from other airlines and outsourcing to other MROs is actually a viable and financially successful maintenance model, but it is.
The fact that DL has grown the size of its maintenance operation as it has grown its level in insourcing shows that the two can go hand in hand.
And I would dare say that DL Tech Ops does as good of a job if not better in maintaining DL's fleet of any airline in the Americas, if not the world.
Maintenance materials is a line item on financial statements. Personnel costs by division is not.
Cost/ASM for total maintenance expenses is reported to the DOT and cited each quarter in Aviation Week among other publications.
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Yeah, DL spends more on maintaining their only planes than they make in insourcing revenue. No one said Delta Tech Ops exists to serve outside customers exclusively... but DL better than any other airline in the Americas uses its maintenance capabilities not only to run a top notch maintenance operation but also to make money for the company and make DL's own internal maintenance more efficient by virtue of the work it brings in from outside the company.
No other airline in the Americas brings in as much revenue through its maintenance operation while also keeping its own maintenance costs at industry low levels - efficiently breeds more business; it's why some US airlines can't compete in the MRO business even though they have similar capabilities because they can't be competitive on price.
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At one time, AA maintained DL's RR Trents while DL maintained the ex-TW PW2000 powered 757s. I don't know if AA is still doing the work or if DL is using someone else.
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Engine service on the 77LR and 77W are provided exclusively by GE as part of the terms of the contract.

 

[700UW]

Bob and weave, show the real numbers, and AA overhauls RR engines for many other airlines and Rolls itself.

Word is the new JV will allow DL to move the 757 HMV checks that are currently being done in SAT and other MROs to be moved sort of inhouse so we have better control of the quality. Right now the 757 PSV lines in ATL are dealing with the poorly done overhauls. We have also been told the JV will allow us to bring in more airframe work. Also the 767 HMV checks could possibly move there once the narrow body lines are up and running.

Could they move the PSV checks from ATL? I doubt they would have the space with narrow body and wide body HMV's.

 

[WorldTraveler]

Bob and weave, show the real numbers, and AA overhauls RR engines for many other airlines and Rolls itself.

because like AA, DL realizes that maintenance of high value parts of the aircraft such as engines and components are what US network airlines can most profitably do.
Yet, with its massive maintenance capabilities, AA's insourcing revenues have continued to decline while DL's continues to grow.
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Just this year, DL signed an agreement to do at least half of the CFM overhauls on Gol's fleet of 100 or so 737Gs. There is money to be made in insourcing by AA, DL, and UA who all have very extensive maintenance capabilities. DL just happens to be most aggressively moving to use those capabilities while at the same time refining a business model that has made Delta Tech Ops the most cost effective airline MRO in the Americas, which coupled with the quality work which they do explains why they continue to grow their MRO business - and at the same time increase the number of mechanics.
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The numbers have been presented; whether you like the numbers or not doesn't change the fact that all the evidence shows that DL Tech Ops is doing what they do better than any of their US peers - and the burden is YOURS to prove that their model doesn't work.

 

[700UW]

DL spent $1,569,000,000 in maintenance cost in 2010 and 9% increase from 2009, just in the year it went up $135,000,000, not cheap!

Aircraft maintenance materials and outside repairs. Aircraft maintenance materials and outside repairs expense increased primarily due to returning aircraft to service after temporary storage, as well as the timing of engine and airframe maintenance volumes.

 

[WorldTraveler]

DL spent $1,569,000,000 in maintenance cost in 2010 and 9% increase from 2009, just in the year it went up $135,000,000, not cheap!

Aircraft maintenance materials and outside repairs. Aircraft maintenance materials and outside repairs expense increased primarily due to returning aircraft to service after temporary storage, as well as the timing of engine and airframe maintenance volumes.

DL is spending $2B over 4-5 years on refurbishing its fleet instead of replacing it. Those costs will show up exactly on the income statement line you note. However, these are expenses over 2-3 years that DL believes will be sufficient along with the 100 new 739ERs and the balance of the M90s it is purchasing to take care of its aircraft capital spending for the next 7-10 years.

1st quarter 2011 maintenance expenses by carrier as reported to the DOT were published in Aviation Daily on Oct 7, 2011.

For the first quarter 2011, DL's maintenance expenses were $603M; UA/CO combined were $738M. DL's maintenance CASM was 1.24 compared to the network industry average of 1.41. UA/CO's weighted average CASM was 1.4 and AA's was 1.47; US was 1.5. AS and HA had higher CASMs which shows the value of running a high volume maintenance operation in reducing costs - and perhaps reflects that outsourcing might be higher for them and for other carriers.
WN's maintenance CASM was 1.16 and FL was 1.29. B6 was .96; VX and NK both had maintenance CASMs less than .6 all reflecting their relatively young fleets.
The average maintenance CASM for the regional carriers was 2.55.
At 7.7%, DL's maintenance expenses as a % of total operating expenses was the lowest for any of the large airlines including WN, B6, and FL.

 

[700UW]

Nope,

That is total maintenance costs for 2010, not current and it rose 9%, was George Bush your Math teacher?

US has a 50/50 split, which is audited every month, 50% of maintenance dollars are done in-house and 50% are done by vendors and thats just overhaul.

Spin it how you want, they spend $1.5 billion last year, and if they spent $603 that makes the projected costs for maintenance this years at $2.4 billion, a pretty big chunk.

 

[WorldTraveler]

Nope,

That is total maintenance costs for 2010, not current and it rose 9%, was George Bush your Math teacher?

US has a 50/50 split, which is audited every month, 50% of maintenance dollars are done in-house and 50% are done by vendors and thats just overhaul.

Spin it how you want, they spend $1.5 billion last year, and if they spent $603 that makes the projected costs for maintenance this years at $2.4 billion, a pretty big chunk.

if you read what I wrote, that is a QUARTERLY number.
The $1.569B number is "aircraft maintenance materials and outside repairs" not total maintenance expenses and it is an ANNUAL number. It's page 28 of DAL's 10K filing for 2010 to the SEC.
It does NOT include payroll for DL employees working in Tech Ops, whose salaries and benefits are included in the line item "salaries and related costs" which for the year was $6.7B.

No one is doubting that DL spends alot on maintenance, but at 7.7% of their total operating expenses, it is the lowest of the large carriers - and basically all US carriers that don't have sub 5 year old fleets.
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but it also doesn't change the fact that DL is bringing in more insourcing revenue than any other airline in the western hemisphere which pretty well says that DL is using its maintenance capabilities to not only provide job growth for its existing employees but also to keep the cost of maintaining its own aircraft as low as possible.
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BTW, if you look at the revenues from ST Aerospace which claims to be the world's largest independent MRO, DL's maintenance budget is almost twice as much.

 

[700UW]

Sending your own planes to a chop shop to save a buck is not worth it, guess you never seen the work that comes back from there. Most planes have to have a lot of work redone cause the MROs are driven by cost and time, where as inhouse mtc is driven by safety, but you wouldnt know this cause you dont work for an airline nor have you ever seen the MROs and how unsupervised they are and never worked on a plane yourself.

Also do you realize MROs have more unlicensed mechanics working on planes than licensed?

Where as airlines require a license and knowing english to fix the planes and sign them off!

Alas, I forget DL is the God of the airline world and can do no wrong, geez I forgot that!

Educate yourself!

 

[WorldTraveler]

Then let's just cut to the heart of the issue which is that you and others believe that if there is anything outsourced, it can't be a good product or service. Doesn't really matter all the discussions you want to have because your basic assumption has been fixed along time ago and it really doesn't matter whether anyone succeeds or not - if they are using a practice which you don't agree with, then that entity can't win.
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You do realize that there is no such thing as a totally US-built jetliner to begin with? The cars in the driveway are almost certainly not 100% American built. You can't walk through the typical American home and find 100% American built products... or the house would be pretty bare.
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The financial services you use almost certainly outsource parts of their services.
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Yes, I get the idea that aviation in the eyes of people on this board is "different" and outsourcing in the airline industry is tantamount to selling your birthright for a bowl of soup, but the reality is that there are airlines who do outsource parts of their maintenance and have very respectable safety records. There are airlines who outsource maintenance and there are airlines that handle the majority of their maintenance in-house who have BOTH accumulated multi-million dollar fines.
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There is no evidence to conclusively make the statement that outsourced maintenance is less safe than maintenance done solely in US airline shops - or that airlines that outsource have low quality maintenance. It is a matter of how well each company oversees the work it does... and there is plenty of evidence that some companies do a good job of managing outsourcing - and at times make the decision that it is not worth it while at other times decide it is.
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What has differentiated DL more than any other US airline is that they continue to believe that they offer high quality maintenance services and can do so well enough that other airlines around the world are willing to bring their planes to ATL or let DL carry their engines there.
Very few other airlines have adopted a maintenance strategy that blends insourcing and outsourcing like Delta has.
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If Delta is practicing something that philosophically you don't like, I can respect your decision. But the fact is that DL is doing a good job using the strategy it has chosen - doing cost efficient, high quality maintenance that also provides a platform for insourcing.
BTW, if you want to go through Delta Tech Ops press releases, you can see some who some of their customers are and the volume of the work they are doing and much of the money DL Tech Ops makes from insourcing is for engine work. DL Tech Ops says it insources about 300 engine overhauls per year. The closest parallel would be the Rolls-Royce/AA partnership in Texas, which says it is in the only authorized RR overhaul station in the US - but I don't know the volume of business the AA/RR partnership does. And DL's insourcing revenue is not shared with another company and uses DL's existing facilities.

 

[700UW]

Better watch your words, A Boeing is totally built in the US, all the parts might not be made in the US, but the plane it totally built in the US.

Yes there is evidence that outsourced mtc is less quality, I have seen it first hand as have many others who worked in maintenance and saw the shoddy work.

Lets see, Valujet engine exploded, blamed on THY MRO, the Mesa Crash in CLT, blamed on bad work on the MRO, the Valujet crash, improper packing and handiling of O2 generators at an MRO.

Shall I continue? Since you done see it first hand, you dont know what goes on.

 

[WorldTraveler]

Better watch your words, A Boeing is totally built in the US, all the parts might not be made in the US, but the plane it totally built in the US.

Yes there is evidence that outsourced mtc is less quality, I have seen it first hand as have many others who worked in maintenance and saw the shoddy work.

Lets see, Valujet engine exploded, blamed on THY MRO, the Mesa Crash in CLT, blamed on bad work on the MRO, the Valujet crash, improper packing and handiling of O2 generators at an MRO.

Shall I continue? Since you done see it first hand, you dont know what goes on.

Yes, Boeing's finally assembly is in the US - with components sourced from all over the world.
As a mechanic does it make you feel comfortable assembling a part that came from "somewhere else" just because it had final assembly in the USA? Not necessarily comfortable at all.. and I agree.
The weakest link - regardless of where or who it is - is the problem... and it might be the person working right next to you, as much as you and I would like to believe differently.
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I don't have any doubts that outsourced work has problems... I have never argued differently. But you and others want to draw a line saying that "if it was done by our mechanics inhouse" it must be flawless work but if it was done by someone else outside the company, it has to be flawed.
The reality is that neither statement is true - and it comes down to quality control - whoever is doing the work.
If the issue could clearly be defined by safety, insourcing would have been banned a long time ago.
But not all insourcing is bad quality work and not all in-house done work is flawless.
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So let's reduce the argument to what it really is which is an economic argument about preserving jobs for US airline workers, not non-airline employees in the US, and not foreign MRO employees.
You can argue that point if you want but trying to reduce the argument to one of black and white "it's a matter of quality and safety" just hasn't won the argument.

For the record, I would have no problem if there was a law saying that all maintenance on US airlines had to be done by US airline personnel, but it would have to apply to all airlines that fly in or to/from the US - and that would be impossible to pursue. You can't tell a Chinese airline that they must do their maintenance in the US - and if a Chinese airline is allowed to do is maintenance w/ lower paid Chinese workers, then how can you tell a US airline that it must use all US based employees but still compete with the Chinese airline (or whatever nationality)?
And while you are at it, if you tried to pass such a law, require that IT support and every other possible job that could be outsourced to a foreign country also be done by US workers too.

 

[DAL Mech]

Better watch your words, A Boeing is totally built in the US, all the parts might not be made in the US, but the plane it totally built in the US.

Yes there is evidence that outsourced mtc is less quality, I have seen it first hand as have many others who worked in maintenance and saw the shoddy work.

Lets see, Valujet engine exploded, blamed on THY MRO, the Mesa Crash in CLT, blamed on bad work on the MRO, the Valujet crash, improper packing and handiling of O2 generators at an MRO.

Shall I continue? Since you done see it first hand, you dont know what goes on.

I have seen it as well. The work is done slower and with much less quality than when it was done in house.

 

[WorldTraveler]

I have seen it as well. The work is done slower and with much less quality than when it was done in house.

I'm not doubting that... but my question is have you ever corrected an error of a coworker?
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And have you seen work that has been incorrectly done by any other US mechanic, including that done by a mechanic at another airline?
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And do you think that DL runs a good maintenance operation and is able to correct whatever problems might exist with its aircraft regardless of whether they are a result of aircraft that have problems in service or as a result of problems with repairs either from DL mechanics or something from outsourced mechanics.

 

[lineguy]

Then let's just cut to the heart of the issue which is that you and others believe that if there is anything outsourced, it can't be a good product or service. Doesn't really matter all the discussions you want to have because your basic assumption has been fixed along time ago and it really doesn't matter whether anyone succeeds or not - if they are using a practice which you don't agree with, then that entity can't win.
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You do realize that there is no such thing as a totally US-built jetliner to begin with? The cars in the driveway are almost certainly not 100% American built. You can't walk through the typical American home and find 100% American built products... or the house would be pretty bare.
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The financial services you use almost certainly outsource parts of their services.
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Yes, I get the idea that aviation in the eyes of people on this board is "different" and outsourcing in the airline industry is tantamount to selling your birthright for a bowl of soup, but the reality is that there are airlines who do outsource parts of their maintenance and have very respectable safety records. There are airlines who outsource maintenance and there are airlines that handle the majority of their maintenance in-house who have BOTH accumulated multi-million dollar fines.
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There is no evidence to conclusively make the statement that outsourced maintenance is less safe than maintenance done solely in US airline shops - or that airlines that outsource have low quality maintenance. It is a matter of how well each company oversees the work it does... and there is plenty of evidence that some companies do a good job of managing outsourcing - and at times make the decision that it is not worth it while at other times decide it is.
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What has differentiated DL more than any other US airline is that they continue to believe that they offer high quality maintenance services and can do so well enough that other airlines around the world are willing to bring their planes to ATL or let DL carry their engines there.
Very few other airlines have adopted a maintenance strategy that blends insourcing and outsourcing like Delta has.
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If Delta is practicing something that philosophically you don't like, I can respect your decision. But the fact is that DL is doing a good job using the strategy it has chosen - doing cost efficient, high quality maintenance that also provides a platform for insourcing.
BTW, if you want to go through Delta Tech Ops press releases, you can see some who some of their customers are and the volume of the work they are doing and much of the money DL Tech Ops makes from insourcing is for engine work. DL Tech Ops says it insources about 300 engine overhauls per year. The closest parallel would be the Rolls-Royce/AA partnership in Texas, which says it is in the only authorized RR overhaul station in the US - but I don't know the volume of business the AA/RR partnership does. And DL's insourcing revenue is not shared with another company and uses DL's existing facilities.

The bottom line should be safety, not dollars saved. You really should see some of the work coming back from the foreign vendors. You are on the outside looking in. We are on the inside looking out. You can only post as an observer who only knows what he reads.

 

[WorldTraveler]

I am simply saying that as a passenger, I am as frustrated by a mechanical delay as anyone... and you are in having to fix it, whether it comes from the routine wear and tear of flying or from fixing a problem that came out of an overhaul.
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I am glad that Delta and other airlines have checks in place ot make sure that problems get addressed whether they result from overhaul, a poor repair by another DL mechanic 2 days before, or something that came up wrong for the first time as the crew was doing their pre-flight checklist.
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I am not doubting problems occur w/ overhauls... but I also saying problems occur for all kinds of reasons, including at times that the problem wasn't fixed by a US based DL mechanic the first time.
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The notion that all work done "by us" is perfect and all work done "by them" is flawed is what I object to... and if there is one shred of flaw in the work "we do" then it is hypocritical to argue that "they" have problems.
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DL (and other airlines) have systems in place to know when something is wrong regardless of the source and get it fixed.
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I am quite comfortable that DL has a culture of addressing problems when they do arise and getting to the root of the problem.