Greetings,
We have listened to the TWU/Bus Driver Union advocates time and time again, claim that AMFA outsourced all of their heavy maintenance overseas.
Let's look at some documented TRUTH. Notice the LAST PARAGRAPH of this article.
FAA Inspects Too Few Plane Maintenance Contractors, Federal Agency Says
Source: Saint Paul Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn.) Publication Date: 07/11/03
Jul. 11--The Federal Aviation Administration is not adequately monitoring the growing number of outside contractors that repair planes flown by Northwest Airlines and other carriers.
That was the warning Thursday from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Office of the Inspector General.
"The vulnerabilities all relate to a lack of effective FAA oversight that needs to be improved," an inspector general report said.
The FAA inspects as few as 1 percent of the contractors, even though contractors got almost half of the $5.4 billion that airlines spent on maintenance and repairs last year, said the report by Inspector General Kenneth Mead. Mead was concerned by what his investigators found. Mechanics at one major U.S carrier identified 6,000 "discrepancies" on an aircraft that returned from a major maintenance check at a foreign repair station.
The report also says a carrier had 400 inspections of its internal maintenance operations in 2002 but just seven reviews of maintenance done on its planes by outside contractors, according to the report.
Eagan-based Northwest and other major airlines, most of which have been losing billions of dollars a year, are shifting maintenance from in-house mechanics to outside vendors to slash their costs.
They can cut their maintenance costs by as much as 50 percent or more by outsourcing maintenance, especially when the work is done in Mexico or Asia.
The report released Thursday found that 18 of 21 outside repair stations checked by government agents, contract mechanics used incorrect aircraft parts and improperly calibrated tools, and they had outdated manuals.
Workers lacked documentation that they were properly qualified and trained to do repairs and policies and procedures were inadequate, inspectors found. Records of work done overseas are often incomplete or incomprehensible.
At one repair site, scrapped parts were not segregated from usable parts.
"The scrapped parts could have been mistakenly used by a mechanic in a repair," the report warned.
FAA Administrator Marion Blakey said the agency agrees with the findings and the need for improvement. However, she stressed the report does not say passengers are in danger.
"There's no data to support a safety issue," she said.
Northwest says outside contractors do about 26 percent of its aircraft maintenance, based on dollars spent. The Inspector General's report estimated that 44 percent of Northwest's maintenance work was outsourced in 2002, however.
Northwest's contract with its mechanics limits external maintenance to 38 percent.
But the mechanics' union says a recent audit done for the union indicates that Northwest may have exceeded that cap.
The airline once used outside contractors to handle surges in maintenance work, said Paul Volker, legislative officer for the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association.
"Now, they've chosen to try to outsource all the maintenance work," he said. Mechanics unions are backing federal legislation that could block overseas companies from obtaining licenses to fix U.S.-registered planes unless they boost security, and possibly do drug and alcohol tests on workers. In the May issue of Passages, the airline's employee newspaper, Northwest said that outsourcing maintenance is an important strategy in its drive to regain profitability.
The airline has lost $1.6 billion and cut 17,000 employees since the start of 2001. Northwest primarily outsources work on its DC-10s, 747-200s and DC-9s. These older planes have peaks and valleys in heavy maintenance scheduling, Kris Bauer, NWA vice president-aircraft maintenance, told Passages.
"This peak-and-valley problem makes the economics of in-house maintenance unjustified," she said. "In addition, Northwest must compete with airlines that purchase aircraft, parts and maintenance service on world markets at world-market prices. To be cost-competitive in a globally interdependent marketplace we need to outsource some of our maintenance."
While costs for outsourced maintenance are lower than for in-house maintenance, Northwest insists quality and safety are not compromised. It maintains that there are no differences between the maintenance program that Northwest mechanics and outside firms follow when working on its planes.
About half of its outsourced maintenance work is done in Asia, Northwest has indicated.
Its Asian maintenance contractors include ST Aviation Services Co. (SASCO), a subsidiary of Singapore Technologies Aerospace. SASCO has done airframe heavy maintenance work for at least eight years on Northwest's DC-10 and 747 fleets. In Hong Kong, Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Co. (HAECO) has performed heavy maintenance on NWA 747s for more than four years.
The Associated Press and Bloomberg contributed to this report.
END ARTICLE
8 YEARS in ASIA and more than 4 YEARS in HONG KONG.
The AMFA/NWA Contract was signed on MAY 11, 2001...
That is only 3 Years, 3 Months ago, it appears the OVERSEAS MAINTENANCE was actually done under the AFL-CIO IAM Contract!
Here is a screen capture of AMFA/NWA Signing Date:
Now Go BLOW your Industrial Union LIES somewhere else!
We have listened to the TWU/Bus Driver Union advocates time and time again, claim that AMFA outsourced all of their heavy maintenance overseas.
Let's look at some documented TRUTH. Notice the LAST PARAGRAPH of this article.
FAA Inspects Too Few Plane Maintenance Contractors, Federal Agency Says
Source: Saint Paul Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn.) Publication Date: 07/11/03
Jul. 11--The Federal Aviation Administration is not adequately monitoring the growing number of outside contractors that repair planes flown by Northwest Airlines and other carriers.
That was the warning Thursday from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Office of the Inspector General.
"The vulnerabilities all relate to a lack of effective FAA oversight that needs to be improved," an inspector general report said.
The FAA inspects as few as 1 percent of the contractors, even though contractors got almost half of the $5.4 billion that airlines spent on maintenance and repairs last year, said the report by Inspector General Kenneth Mead. Mead was concerned by what his investigators found. Mechanics at one major U.S carrier identified 6,000 "discrepancies" on an aircraft that returned from a major maintenance check at a foreign repair station.
The report also says a carrier had 400 inspections of its internal maintenance operations in 2002 but just seven reviews of maintenance done on its planes by outside contractors, according to the report.
Eagan-based Northwest and other major airlines, most of which have been losing billions of dollars a year, are shifting maintenance from in-house mechanics to outside vendors to slash their costs.
They can cut their maintenance costs by as much as 50 percent or more by outsourcing maintenance, especially when the work is done in Mexico or Asia.
The report released Thursday found that 18 of 21 outside repair stations checked by government agents, contract mechanics used incorrect aircraft parts and improperly calibrated tools, and they had outdated manuals.
Workers lacked documentation that they were properly qualified and trained to do repairs and policies and procedures were inadequate, inspectors found. Records of work done overseas are often incomplete or incomprehensible.
At one repair site, scrapped parts were not segregated from usable parts.
"The scrapped parts could have been mistakenly used by a mechanic in a repair," the report warned.
FAA Administrator Marion Blakey said the agency agrees with the findings and the need for improvement. However, she stressed the report does not say passengers are in danger.
"There's no data to support a safety issue," she said.
Northwest says outside contractors do about 26 percent of its aircraft maintenance, based on dollars spent. The Inspector General's report estimated that 44 percent of Northwest's maintenance work was outsourced in 2002, however.
Northwest's contract with its mechanics limits external maintenance to 38 percent.
But the mechanics' union says a recent audit done for the union indicates that Northwest may have exceeded that cap.
The airline once used outside contractors to handle surges in maintenance work, said Paul Volker, legislative officer for the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association.
"Now, they've chosen to try to outsource all the maintenance work," he said. Mechanics unions are backing federal legislation that could block overseas companies from obtaining licenses to fix U.S.-registered planes unless they boost security, and possibly do drug and alcohol tests on workers. In the May issue of Passages, the airline's employee newspaper, Northwest said that outsourcing maintenance is an important strategy in its drive to regain profitability.
The airline has lost $1.6 billion and cut 17,000 employees since the start of 2001. Northwest primarily outsources work on its DC-10s, 747-200s and DC-9s. These older planes have peaks and valleys in heavy maintenance scheduling, Kris Bauer, NWA vice president-aircraft maintenance, told Passages.
"This peak-and-valley problem makes the economics of in-house maintenance unjustified," she said. "In addition, Northwest must compete with airlines that purchase aircraft, parts and maintenance service on world markets at world-market prices. To be cost-competitive in a globally interdependent marketplace we need to outsource some of our maintenance."
While costs for outsourced maintenance are lower than for in-house maintenance, Northwest insists quality and safety are not compromised. It maintains that there are no differences between the maintenance program that Northwest mechanics and outside firms follow when working on its planes.
About half of its outsourced maintenance work is done in Asia, Northwest has indicated.
Its Asian maintenance contractors include ST Aviation Services Co. (SASCO), a subsidiary of Singapore Technologies Aerospace. SASCO has done airframe heavy maintenance work for at least eight years on Northwest's DC-10 and 747 fleets. In Hong Kong, Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Co. (HAECO) has performed heavy maintenance on NWA 747s for more than four years.
The Associated Press and Bloomberg contributed to this report.
END ARTICLE
8 YEARS in ASIA and more than 4 YEARS in HONG KONG.
The AMFA/NWA Contract was signed on MAY 11, 2001...
That is only 3 Years, 3 Months ago, it appears the OVERSEAS MAINTENANCE was actually done under the AFL-CIO IAM Contract!
Here is a screen capture of AMFA/NWA Signing Date:
Now Go BLOW your Industrial Union LIES somewhere else!
UT
