I just saw a Link TV program saying airplane maintenance is being outsourced to El Salvidor and other areas outside the US. Air line mechanics in the US require schooling and they average 20 years experience. Moving the upkeep is a cost only justification. Airlines can not say it is a safety concern.
The repair is overseen by FAA. They lost over 300 more inspectors last year to budget cutting. So far only one accident has been attributed to poor upkeep. There are more than 5000 repair locations for American Airplanes in the world.
Are there some things that should not be outsourced and is this one of them?
Absolutely. If any of the FAA investigators don’t know the kinds of people they’ll be dealing with in places like El Salvador, they shouldn’t be investigating anything more complex than wheelbarrows. Anyone in any Central American country, except maybe Costa Rica, who has the money and political connections to get involved with the complexity of an airliner maintainance facility is almost certainly also involved in stuff that the airlines don’t want to be involved in. (I hope). Add in the corruption that is endemic in import-export licenses and so on and there is a real risk of counterfeit parts (that can’t be told from real ones until they break; this is already a problem in the US and would be much worse in CA).
And lots of other reasons, not least of which is the large pool of highly skilled American workers, many of whom have spent a lifetime learning their trade, who would find themselves suddenly delivering pizzas. They would be extremely pissed, and so would I.
Very very bad idea.
this is nothing new. HAECO is a company that’s been outsourcing airline maintenance for years and years.
The airlines are doing much of their own inspections. That was the logic before 911. The airlines ran the passenger and luggage inspection. They tried to keep wages low and did not spend on the latest technology. When the metal detectors were broken they were not always fixed. Profit and safety clash in corporations and safety loses out.
The right word is not “would” but “are”. It’s already the case. The airlines are in a spiral to the bottom, doomed to hover in and out of bankruptcy, and are cutting costs everywhere they can. Even the most senior mechanics barely make enough to live on, and many have indeed left the industry just to survive. Outsourcing of everything possible to the lowest-cost providers possible is a way of life, and has been for a long time.
The problems and concerns mentioned in this thread don’t depend on that outsourcing being in other countries. In fact, the one incident the OP mentions (US5481 at CLT in '03) was attributable to an error made by a third-level outsource mechanic in West Virginia, not El Salvador.
The issue with adequate FAA oversight of certificated repair stations, and of those stations’ oversight of their own subcontractors, is certainly real. But it has been for some time now - there’s a widespread sentiment that that, in combination with management pressures on inspectors to “find things”, induces them to do the fast, easy, high-likelihood-of-result work of looking only at paperwork and not at airplanes or people.
Not aware of the show you watched but A/C maintenance items are not overseen by the FAA in the sense that they are individually certified. Shops are certified, people are certfied, and airline maintenance programs are certified. Yes, aircraft are spot inspected but it is the process that the FAA concentrates on. If you’re talking about repair in the sense that there is structural damage then it would most likely be certified. Structural repairs usually involve engineering input from the manufacturer of the plane.
Each airline is different and so are their maintenance programs. Time before overhaul on various items differs between airlines based on their demonstrated ability. And depending on the item being worked on it is common practice to farm out the work. Many items are overhauled by shops dedicated to the item. It could be anything such as gauges, oil coolers,actuators or elevator trim mechanisms. In theory this allows companies to concentrate on doing 1 thing well instead of a maintenance shop that has to do everything well.
Losing 300 inspectors may or may not affect the inspection process depending on the number of flights involved. After 9/11 there was a significant drop in air travel that to this day has not fully recovered. It may be a matter of maintaining the same ratio of inspectors to passenger miles flown. IMO, that ratio would be more important than outsourcing.
There has been a huge in crease in the facilities that work on airplanes. They are around the world and China is about to enter . Inspection will be very slack and airlines will do their own. The battle between profits and safety is one I do not like the thought of flying in. Increasing inspectors would be the thing to do.
If this were a real problem, don’t you think it would show up in the safety statistics?
Here are the safety stats for the last 20 years: NTSB Accident Data
According to the chart, in terms of major accidents per million hours flown, 2005 was the 4th safest in the last 20 years. The year 2005 had the lowest number of injury accidents since 1992, despite a record number of flight hours being logged. In general, airline safety is much better than it was 10 years ago, and much, much better than it was 20 years ago. In 1989, there were 7 times as many serious accidents per million hours flown.
So if there’s a problem here, it’s not reflected in the accident statistics.
And yet, looking at the link Sam Stone provided, I don’t see your worries reflected in reality. Imagine that. Just why do you suppose that, though airlines are flying more miles, there are less accidents, despite this outsourcing (which has been going on for quite a while btw…despite the fact you hadn’t noticed it until recently)? To what do you attribute this disconnect?
-XT
If you look at this table which breaks down the statistics for scheduled airlines only, you’ll see that the last four years are the safest four years on record. Since 2002, there have only been 6 airline-related fatal accidents, killing 57 people. That’s a low number. Compare that to the first four years on the chart, in which there were 19 fatal accidents which killed 637 people.
My experience is that aviation maintenance engineers come with ‘Boeing’ stamped on their forehead.
Those things cost one heck of a lot of money, if they crash it is a disaster and if they go tech away from base it is a logistical disaster.
I know of one instance where incorrect parts were used, a British airline (can’t remember details) and the cockpit window removed itself from the aircraft - the wrong type of screw.
While I dislike outsourcing, those things are so expensive that only an idiot would trust them to idiots.
Which I guess means we are in for a nasty crash and some idiots will take early retirement.
You’re thinking of BA 5390 in 1990 (the captain survived only by a miracle). The maintenance error was made by one of BA’s own supervisors.
The program said there already was a crash that was due to improper maintenance. It also said inferior parts were starting to show up. While historically flying has been safe how far do we let something like this go on.?
I will tell you. When a accidents start to happen. The6y will deny that maintenance is the root cause . Then more until it gets obvious. Then we all ask "how did this happen:?.
The ValuJet crash in the Everglades, caused by improper cargo packing by a (US) subcontractor, didn’t do it. What would?
Again, unless it is structural damage, the FAA doesn’t inspect routine maintenance. They focus most of their resources on the maintenance process.
There are foreign airlines that I would not wish to fly on and there are specific aircraft that I’m not too fond of. but I’m not worried about the FAA’s inspection process.
Well, the same people who lose your luggage also load the plane, so there’s always the human element at some level.
Sometimes it’s something simple. There was a Mexicana crash years ago that was caused by a mechanic who put air in the tires. And it could be a really small item like a missing o ring. Not a big deal unless it shuts down 3 engines at the same time on an L1011.
Guess what – the federal government isn’t doing any better of a job now that they took over.
That’s simply wrong. If corporations have unsafe records, they lose business. That’s a distinct incentive to be safe. If a government agency has an unsafe record, there really are no consequences. Government workers are next-to-impossible to fire and it takes years to change the bureacracy. Your logic is flawed.
It is simply right. The market power you believe in so fundimentally is bogus. The question is does a government control safety or does private industry. Private industry will always cut corners to increase profits. Safety will suffer. After a few accidents and public outcry ,they reluctantly will begin to fix what they have caused.
Unions which you hate have helped eliminate child workforces and helped in the development of work safety laws. They are in an endless fight against corporations that wish to cut safety to raise profits.
This mantra that the market place will fix all flaws has been proven wrong endlessly.
As you say yourself, these industries have an incentive to fix any problems due to “public outcry.” Furthermore, if one airline has a record for maintenance problems and safety issues, and another airline does not, which do you think will get more customers?
Did I say anything against unions? Unions certainly have a place and they have done some good, especially in terms of improving safety. However, cutting safety does not necessarily raise profits. Increasing safety often raises profits, too.
Have I said it would fix all flaws? What I’m saying is that putting government in charge won’t fix these issues. When the government took over airline security, it was claimed that this would fix the problems that caused 9/11. Well, as we have seen with the TSA’s incredibly poor performance, just because the government is in charge does not mean anything is fixed. The government record is as bad – or worse – than private screeners and the TSA has had huge cost overruns.
Government has little incentive to improve its performance. As I said before, it’s incredibly hard to fire an incompetent government worker. Government agencies that perform badly usually get increases in funding, not decreases (how’s that for a perverse incentive?). Changing the bureaucracy to promote efficiency takes years and is delayed by unions and other vested interests. Private companies, however, can respond much more quickly than government to fix problems. They aren’t perfect, but they are better than government agencies.
Lets see some examples.
Even assuming you are right here ( :dubious: …it would be a first), how does this make the government option automatically better? Do you have some examples of how the government is better at this than private industry? Perhaps you could compare and contrast the safety record of private industry with full government inspection and regulation?
And yet…Sam showed that safety has IMPROVED since this outsourcing. And you have yet to respond to that except to spout your usual unsupported bullshit rant about the evils of private corporations. Imagine that…
And yet (again), you have never actually PROVEN anything of the sort, and your claim, as always, is completely unsupported by any cites or facts. Its just you spouting the same old crap. Take this debate for instance. Someone has shown that the safety record of the air line has improved…yet you continue to ignore this in favor of ranting on. Why is that?
-XT