AA executives replaced over last year for maintenance lapses
- Thread starter Hopeful
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Deleted member 17588
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That would be interesting to know. Are these same "slack-offs" still working in a safety-critical capacity or have they been terminated. As the article says: "The statement also said personnel changes were made 'in American's maintenance department, as in other departments, as managers/officers are shifted around and as employees retire or leave the company.' "
My guess is that these incompetent employees have just been shifted around to another position. And that's certainly not what this company needs.
WorldTraveler
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The article says that "as people have left the company and have retired" and "shifted around" indicating that there was likely not a concerted effort to clean out the AA execs that were part of the problem that caused the FAA whistleblower to charge that the FAA was not being strong enough in ensuring AA follow FAA safety procedures.
But let's be clear that AA is trying very hard to avoid paying the $24million in the FAA fine or as much as possible... moving a few people around could go a long ways toward convincing the FAA that the problem has been corrected.. or at least that it won't happen again.
Remember that WN, which had the largest FAA fine prior to the AA MD80 proposed fine, cleaned out a fair number of their own maintenance personnel as well.
But both of these instances show that, as much as some people would like to believe, in-house maintenance is not necessarily of the highest quality.
But let's be clear that AA is trying very hard to avoid paying the $24million in the FAA fine or as much as possible... moving a few people around could go a long ways toward convincing the FAA that the problem has been corrected.. or at least that it won't happen again.
Remember that WN, which had the largest FAA fine prior to the AA MD80 proposed fine, cleaned out a fair number of their own maintenance personnel as well.
But both of these instances show that, as much as some people would like to believe, in-house maintenance is not necessarily of the highest quality.
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Deleted member 17588
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I disagree. Despite the few "bad apples" in AA's in-house maintenance, I'd venture to say that AA's in-house maintenance is the highest quality available and is certainly superior to any third world, developing country's non-English-speaking workforce.
You are entitled to your biased opinion; however, not you own facts. The so called problem with the wire bundle in the S-80 wheel well was greatly exaggerated to make it look like the FAA actually did something. The protective sheathing to protect the wire bundle was AAs idea. Not something likely to occur at some third party maintenance vendor, chop shop - fixing planes for the infidels.
The FAA could not agree with themselves in many circumstances. A plane would be inspected by the FAA at one station and approved, only to fly to another station, and be inspected by another FAA inspector who disapproved. There were some minor issues on spacing of the lacing cord knots, and how much to tape wrap at the connectors; however, at no time was there ever an unsafe wire bundle.
The FAA can try and spin this as some sort of huge find all they want. It wasn't!
WorldTraveler
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I am not interested in debating the FAA fine against AA but the simple FACT is that AA is currently trying to get out from under the largest aviation maintenance fine ever leavied in the United States.
Who was at fault - individual AA mechanics, AA mgmt, or the FAA - is not really what moves the public who knows that AA had a massive operational meltdown and is now facing a record fine over the MD80 wiring issue - and at the very same time, no other airline went through the same thing or has been fined for the same reasons. Other airlines had to perform the same checks and apparently were able to do it without problems. The FAA could have easily "picked" on any other airline or all of them if they wanted to make their point.
It is also noteworthy that the FAA has fined AA as well as other airlines for other maintenance issues in the past several years so the MD80 wiring issue is not the only issue.
I don't disagree that AA does high quality maintenance but to consistently argue that it is the third party providers and the foreign maintenance operators who do poor quality work is a simple denial of the reality that AA has maintenance issues it must resolve - or at least continue to work its way out of the problems that existed several years ago. And despite the assertions that "someday" there will be an accident involving 3rd party maintenance, it hasn't happened despite significant portions of US industry maintenance being outsourced. If it is that bad, it will show up.
Given that the FAA is the primary government safety enforcement agency in the United States, AA's ability to demonstrate to the FAA that it runs its maintenance operations to the highest levels is what counts.
And BTW, that $24M fine works out to about $340 for every AA mainline employee; if the fine is ultimately cut in half as often is the case, then the share for each employee is also reduced.
Who was at fault - individual AA mechanics, AA mgmt, or the FAA - is not really what moves the public who knows that AA had a massive operational meltdown and is now facing a record fine over the MD80 wiring issue - and at the very same time, no other airline went through the same thing or has been fined for the same reasons. Other airlines had to perform the same checks and apparently were able to do it without problems. The FAA could have easily "picked" on any other airline or all of them if they wanted to make their point.
It is also noteworthy that the FAA has fined AA as well as other airlines for other maintenance issues in the past several years so the MD80 wiring issue is not the only issue.
I don't disagree that AA does high quality maintenance but to consistently argue that it is the third party providers and the foreign maintenance operators who do poor quality work is a simple denial of the reality that AA has maintenance issues it must resolve - or at least continue to work its way out of the problems that existed several years ago. And despite the assertions that "someday" there will be an accident involving 3rd party maintenance, it hasn't happened despite significant portions of US industry maintenance being outsourced. If it is that bad, it will show up.
Given that the FAA is the primary government safety enforcement agency in the United States, AA's ability to demonstrate to the FAA that it runs its maintenance operations to the highest levels is what counts.
And BTW, that $24M fine works out to about $340 for every AA mainline employee; if the fine is ultimately cut in half as often is the case, then the share for each employee is also reduced.
Frank Szabo
Veteran
No action but the typical corporate "kick" upstairs. What little actually took place was for sake of appearance only.
Again, Governor LePetomane admonishes the troops - "Gentlemen - we have to protect our phony-baloney jobs - harrumph!"
[sub]Mel Brooks - "Blazing Saddles"[/sub]
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