Hopeful
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FAA watching AA
- Thread starter Hopeful
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Thats been the word on the floor for sometime now. it seems that since AA does all their work in house it makes it a lot easier for the FAA to keep a closer eye on what they do. I've worked other places and I have to say that while there's always room for improvement the maintenance performed at AA is the best I've seen. When our planes come out of OH they are usually like new, when I worked for outfits that subbed out OH they came back clean and repainted as well, but mechanically they were usually disasters. It seemed like they just pushed them out the door to make room for the next customer.
Some of the FAA crackdown on AA could be due to the fact that AA gave Bush a lot of support when he was running for President.
While I welcome the fact that the FAA is doing their job I dont like the fact that they are focusing a lot of their attention and venting out their fustrations on an already stressed and battered workforce instead of management.
Hopeful
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:blink: :unsure:
You're not joking, are you? You actually believe juvenile nonsense like the above, right? My uneducated hillbilly relatives (the ones who live in flyover country, not Long Island) spew uneducated nonsense like that.
AA's pilots have recently experienced more than their share of botched landings. The pilots are "stressed and battered?" They fly, on average, about 52 hours a month for pay that's significantly higher than pilots at UA, DL, CO, US and every other passenger airline other than WN. They don't make as much money as they'd like, but "stressed and battered?"
FrequentFlierCA
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Let's not forget the million dollar lump sum packages that some pilots cashed out with last year. Stressed and bothered about which sports car to buy, maybe.
As for the FAA it is barking up the wrong tree. AA's in-house MRO is top-notch; why not spend some resources on supervising the foreign repair shops that the other big airlines use (to obtain a cost advantage while AA supports jobs in the US)?
As for the FAA it is barking up the wrong tree. AA's in-house MRO is top-notch; why not spend some resources on supervising the foreign repair shops that the other big airlines use (to obtain a cost advantage while AA supports jobs in the US)?
,
Bob,
While I agree that our in-house maintenance is better than what I've experienced from any OSV at any of the other aviation companies with whom I've been employed, according to the story cited; the additional attention is due to operational errors from the flight side of the house, not maintenance.
In any case, we cannot want both sides of the same argument: we want to be paid what we are worth and must be willing to stand the scrutiny as professionals. AA has notified the AMT classification that any deviation from established procedure will be disclosed by AA to the FAA with sanctions applicable from both.
It was not the FAA that forced the legal accountability down to the technician level while maintaining that the technician can be fired for insubordination for failing to follow management directives: that is the position of AA. We have the Krueze Arbitration and the FAA as a lever against AA.
Use the leverage to obtain the appropriate compensation from AA.
SkydrolJunkie
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People being held accountable for their actions. When is this policy going to start?
I don't think the crackdown and fines have anything to do with maintenance. This is about the pilots. They are checking out AA's pilot training program, check airmen, and recurrent training.
Hopeful
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True.. AA maintenance has been under increased scrutiny since the MD80 case was cracked.
Keep in mind, there is still a yet to be determined possibly huge fine awaiting AA.
T
The Goose
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The FAA has no authority to audit foreign MROs to the extent they do those physically in the USA, nor is the FAA likely to be given that authority with regard to its operations in a sovereign foreign country.
They cannot mandate drug testing, must give notice of their intent to audit (giving plenty of time to cook books), and have no authority to levy fines.
The fines levied on US companies go into the FAA's operation budget - why would they fool around with foreign repair stations when there's no authority to extract money from them?
Didn't take long this year for FFCA to post some more totally ignorant garbage regarding AA pilots.
The lump sum package was not a bonus based on comparisons to bankrupt carriers like managments scummy benchmarks. It was a lump sum comprised 1/2 based on salary contributions contractually made decades ago, many times earning a salary less than competitors, and 1/2 based on a standard retirement formula. Outside a limited medical plan, AA is also financially done with these guys forever, not so if they retired with annuities.
Not a single one collected the lump and continued to fly and worrying about "which sports car to buy".
Thomas Paine
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Good for them! Its nice to see where some rank and file guys make out. They earned those buyouts. I just wish we had a union that would do stuff like that for us instead of always taking the companys side. I like the one where the pilots at another carrier got sham divorces so they could take advantage of a life change provision and save themselves a few bucks too.
