The A330 Blues

[AOG-N-IT]

Acft 670UW....our 1st A330-300 is in CLT for a scheduled C-3 Check.

During Inspection corrosion has been noted on the "Bogie"(Aft Axle) of the L/H Main Landing Gear. Corrosion is a noteable flaw that is being detected throughout numerous areas of the Airbus Acft...yet this is severe to the point that it exceeds the manufacturers limits.....in a nutshell it's useless !!

This part is made by Messier -Dowty of the UK....M-D does not stock this item in the US...and this is considering two other A330 operators live in North America (NW/AC) as well.

We are looking at extended downtime beyond the C-Check in light of this.....not to mention a cost that will eclipse $170,000.00 for the part alone....labor , shipping.customs and the delayed use of the Acft will have to be factored in as well

Acft 670UW is a relatively young Acft ...and should not be seeing issues like this for a number of years to come.....yet here we are with a second rate level of anti-corrosion standards hampering profits and production again.

Acft 670UW was built in Toulouse France ....it was completed on 7 March 2000...with U taking delivery of it on 30 March 2000.

Acft 670UW has 17,784.34 hours on the clock....with a daily average use of 15.0 hours

Needless to say.....Messier -Dowty and Airbus itself continue to fall far short of the mark on material standards and product support standards.....and this is but another added flaw that we can ill afford as a company.

 

[ExUAW]

<span style='font-family:Optima'>Gee Whiz ... we'll probably deduct the extra expense from Ganwal and Wolf's pensions. If it wasn't so sad, and detrimental to the future of my own job I'd say y'all deserve it! Next time ... buy American!</span>

 

[delldude]

AOG:looks like another bargain basement deal left over from administrations gone by...
brings to mind the fokker 100 deal of the century and now stevie wolfe still haunts us daily.

 

[AOG-N-IT]

AOG:looks like another bargain basement deal left over from administrations gone by...
brings to mind the fokker 100 deal of the century and now stevie wolfe still haunts us daily.

Dell,
This is a repeat of the Fokker scenario. Buying on the cheap means recieving cheap.

I have said it before...the Airbus is a sweet deal on initial purchase price...and it's an added bonus from a crew training standpoint. Beyond those two limiting factors , The Airbus family will eat your lunch.

670UW's ordeal is nothing new....the corrosion just migrated to a different place this time. The last A330 in C-Check was 672UW....this one missed ETR by a country mile do to what? You guessed it , "Corrosion". 672UW was eaten up with Seat Track corrosion that could not be pencil whipped or passed off till it's scheduled S-Check. The AOG fees and delays to return to service were staggering at best.

Yes Messier-Dowty has a noteable history of providing lightly constructed landing Gears....how many years with the Fokkers proved that fact? Yet being the line my pockets dummies that we've had...and have running this place only continues to open us p for more long range problems.

The other sad aspect is the limited amount of Gear parts we actually have , due to those gears being vendored out for repairs. Nobody will show you how much downtime costs , outsourcing costs , AOG fees cost , shipping and customs cost Vs. having the ability to do it yourself....or buy from a US based company as we should be doing to begin with.

 

[Non Rev]

This part is made by Messier -Dowty of the UK

Well you know the Brits are known for their cars and cuisine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

 

[E-TRONS]

Now just imagine if this A330 was subjected to S.A. Mobile Aerospace FARMOUT maintenance contract......how would they handle it??

How about some grinding and priming......voila!! As good as new <_< (sarcasm!!!).

Another quality on time product (insane laughter!!)


Please, please, please.......just shoot me!!!!!!

 

[AOG-N-IT]

Now just imagine if this A330 was subjected to S.A. Mobile Aerospace FARMOUT maintenance contract......how would they handle it??

How about some grinding and priming......voila!! As good as new <_< (sarcasm!!!).

Another quality on time product (insane laughter!!)


Please, please, please.......just shoot me!!!!!!

E-Trons,

That very question has been posed a number of times in CLT...and I'm sure it's crossed everyones mind elsewhere in maintenance.

Considering the 672UW is younger than 670.....and 672 had tons of issues , what does this lead one to believe about 700UW , that was the very first Airbus of any discrption delivered to U

I'm willing to bet that ST Mobile Aerospace has a Tool Room full of Snap-on , Mac , Craftsman and other pens for the asking.

Somewhere along the line , 700UW is going to have some minor issue that will have to have something done to it....and during the course of this repair it's going to expose what the folks in Mobile chose to ignore or overlook.....you can just baout bet on it.

BTW....670's L/H MLG problem has increased in cost since since made the initial post....I saw another 20K worth of stuff requested for this one defect.....U / We can only pray that this will be a "Warranty Claim".....we fight 'em tooth and nail and usually win....but the clock is ticking on the limits of the warranty....then we are really going to get blistered

 

[700UW]

Kinda of ironic, I find it hard to believe this whenever it is a part we can overhaul in house from an airbus the company claims it is warranty work and send it back to airbus but when it is a vendor item we always pay for it.

Reminds me of a flap on a A319 a few months back that was damaged by a bird strike, the flap was removed and sent to the composite shop, when our mechanics were getting ready to repair it the foreman told them not to as it was under warranty and was going back to airbus which was sending a replacement flap which we had to lease and pay them for until the flap we sent them was repaired by them, then we would have to take the flap of the plane, replace it with the repaired one and send the leased one back to airbus.

After a little digging some of our colleagues found out that US Airways says we don't own the flight controls, we lease them from Airbus, kinda of odd that a bird strike would be a warranty item. It would be like me driving a new car off the lot, hitting a deer and then taking it back to the dealer and telling them the repairs should be under warranty. Me thinks something is rotten in Denmark folks!

Also reminds me of the Meal and Beverage Cart fiasco several years back, seems that the company claimed that Dining and Cabin Services signed a contract for a vendor to overhaul and repair the broken meal and beverage carts, the IAM found out about it, filed a grievance, got the work back in-house and the effected mechanics were given restitution for all work performed by the vendor.

The most BS fact is Maintenance Management claimed they knew nothing about it, but the last time I checked, Material Services, Maintenance and Purchasing were in charge of getting broken airplane items fixed.

See it is not the first time the company had violated the CBA.

 

[700UW]

Bob, how true!

This company will spend a million to save a penny!

 

[BoeingBoy]

Should have gotten the 76-300's. How much did we pay to get out of Boeing contracts only to end up with the "cheaper" Airbus.

One less fleet-type, lower pilot salaries, less pilot training, etc.

Of course, Wolf is said to have a chateau in France...

 

[Singleflyer]

Bob you are right alot of people do not look at total ownership cost. But in the long run I think the Airbus products will have a lower ownership cost.

If you consider the consertive bean counters that run NW, and most of the planes they are currenly adding are Airbus product. I know they did their home work on total ownership costs of planes. Heck, they are probably flying the first DC-9 ever made. The airline is in a big equipment replacement mode (they did not X-cell deliveries after 9-11) and it is Airbus products.

So long term, I think the Airbus will prove to a winner. I also hope this landing gear is under warranty, or replaced for good will.

 

[700UW]

Singleflyer, you are way off base, the Airbii which are newer then the Boeings are showing severe corrosein problems, all the airbus narrowboys were found to need a lavatory pan replacement while the cockpit door mods were being done, the only problem is that Airbus could not meet the demand as ALL Airbus operators have the same problem, you are talking about planes that are 5 years or less in age.

AOG can share you his nightmare of trying to find Airbus parts.

The narrow body airbus are throw away airplanes, from talking to fellow mechanics at NWA they are a sheet metal mechanic's cashcow.

How do you think EADS can sell the planes so cheap?
Their workers make more then a Boeing worker, it is the lack of quality in the materials, the interiors are all plastic which break all the time, granted they look nice to the average passenger, but they don't have to deal with all the issues involved in maintaining those planes.

 

[AOG-N-IT]

Singleflyer, you are way off base, the Airbii which are newer then the Boeings are showing severe corrosein problems, all the airbus narrowboys were found to need a lavatory pan replacement while the cockpit door mods were being done, the only problem is that Airbus could not meet the demand as ALL Airbus operators have the same problem, you are talking about planes that are 5 years or less in age.

AOG can share you his nightmare of trying to find Airbus parts.

The narrow body airbus are throw away airplanes, from talking to fellow mechanics at NWA they are a sheet metal mechanic's cashcow.

How do you think EADS can sell the planes so cheap?
Their workers make more then a Boeing worker, it is the lack of quality in the materials, the interiors are all plastic which break all the time, granted they look nice to the average passenger, but they don't have to deal with all the issues involved in maintaining those planes.

Spot-On 700UW.

"The Airbus will prove a winner"....How does one define a winner?

(1) A CEO and a CFO will define it by a one time splash on the annual report...Look at me I saved money for us this year

I define a winner as something with prolonged staying power...with longevity in mind.

This is just like sports...sure the Baltimore Ravens won a Super Bowl once....but how are they viewed Vs. teams that are refered to as Dynasty's by repeating that success back to back or numerous times over the course of time?

Airbus is a "Flash in the pan" bargain on paper....yet it will be completely impossible to weigh their precieved value Vs. a comperable Boeing. Simply put the Boeing will be Going....and the Bus will have already been replaced by another Airbus or a Boeing over a 15 year period at the maximum.

AA has had it's issues with the A300..and is mostly a Boeing Company....CO had it's trist with Airbus and returned to Boeing....DL got suckered in to Airbus when they took on Pan Am assets...yet returned to Boeing.

IMHO , U , UA , NW and HP have all taken a short term gain point of view...Vs. the problem that plagues us now. Prolonged Longevity concerns and long Range Vision.....Airbus is for those whom can't think past the end of their noses....Boeing is for those that aspire to prosper in the Legacy mindset.

 

[electradude]

Singleflyer,
In point of fact, I was told the internal evaluation team at NW recommended a 767-300 and 777 split order to replace the DC10, by a wide margin over the A330. Micky Foret (CFO of NW at the time) overruled the decision based on "costs".

I think some of the long time Airbi users may be rethinking their decision, as an example, Air Canada is very interested in various versions of the 717. They are not interested in the A318.

I think quality speaks for itself. It carries a higher price tag usually. Some people (and companies) are very short sighted on this point, and pay dearly for it in the end.

Just my two cents worth.

 

[sfb]

There seem to be a couple of schools of thought regarding the NWA A330 order. I recall seeing (on airwhiners.net, among the which livery do you think is prettiest posts) a repost of an internal memo from NWA regarding the analysis which had led to the decision to go for the A330-300 as the DC-10/747-200 replacement (basically, that the 777-200 was too much airplane for the transatlantic routes and that the 767 didn't offer enough cargo capacity). Then again, NWA already had a number of outstanding orders for the A330 (which had been deferred a couple of times) with Airbus, and and they likely would have faced a substantial cancellation fee if they had chosen to not take the aircraft. I imagine that "costs" included both the up-front acquisition cost as well as the loss of deposits and/or penalties for cancelling the A330 orders.

I wonder if, perhaps, the Airbus business model is somewhat akin to King Gillette's razor business. Give airlines an extremely attractive up-front cost on the airframe, and make up for it by guaranteeing a profit stream from the sale of expensive spare parts. I don't have direct knowledge of the business, but it sure would seem that way from AOG-N-IT's experience.

As for NWA continuing to buy Airbus narrowbodies...well, TCO would also include the added costs of operating a mixed fleet of NG737's and A319/A320's for essentially the same missions. It would be very tough to unload over 100 Airbus narrowbodies without taking a big writeoff, even if the direct operating cost of the NG737 is a bit lower. You dance with the one that brought you.