Some US Airlines Outsource Maintenance to Central America(El Salvador)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.kyw1060.com/news_story_detail.cfm?newsitemid=43464

There's more outsourcing of jobs -- now it's the airlines industry.
The latest, preferred location for airline maintenance? El Salvador.

The Wall Street Journal reports at least two airlines -- Jet Blue and America West -- send their planes to El Salvador for "long distance" maintenance, outsourcing the work to cut costs.

Air safety experts are said be concerned that it jeopardizes safety and makes scrutiny by regulatory agencies more difficult.

Glad I rarely fly.

[Menshevik]

1. as if I needed another reason

to hate America Worst....er, America West

[Bono71]

2. Great, I fly all the time...note to self...no jet blue or america west n/t

[MindPilot]

3. Anyone ever read the book "Tarmac"?

Written by a former airport manager about the blackmarket airplane parts industry and the shady charactors involved. It's fiction, but with supposedly a lot of basis in truth and South America is a hotbed of non-compliant parts sources.

[havocmom]

6. Check the Untied Airlines employees site sometime for an eye opener!

http://www.untied.com

Workers post some interesting things about what goes on. I had to stop reading about repairs/maintenance as some in my family fly often.

[geomon666]

27. My father was a mechanic for over 20 years...

and I've grown up with many stories about the goings on. To this day I've flown only 5 times in my entire life.

[havocmom]

4. Wow, what a cool way for workers there to get even with the US for various

foreign policy, uh, blunders...

We better think about saving/expanding Amtrak

[progressivebydesign]

5. My husband has to fly on America west on Sunday...

.. his company booked it. Never again. There are some things you just don't outsource. SAFETY is one of them.

BTW, the company travel rep booked his flights on this trip. In trying to minimize his layover times, she actually booked him on TWO different airlines for the trip... one each way. Guess what? On his way out of town he was pulled out of line and completely searched, bags searched, etc. And I guess it'll be more of the same on the way back. We need to tell the travel rep that you DO NOT book one-way tickets anymore. The Feds and airlines are so clueless that they actually think a terrorist would book a one-way ticket now when it sends up flags all over the place.

[medeak]

7. will the seats all have different upholstery now?

like the unbelievable experience on Tan Sasa Airlines (Costa Rica)

[leftofcool]

8. As though I needed something else

to make me puke everytime I get on a plane.

Left of Cool

[American Renaissance]

9. TACA is a perfectly competant service provider.

Believe it or not, TACA opperates under more stringent regulatory oversight than American contractors do. The FAA has "outsourced" virtually all enforcement to the same companies who do the maintainence.

Swiss Air 111, that crashed because of sloppy wiring was gold standard FAA approved, but the FAA never got anywhere near the plane, it was aproved by now-defunct Santa Barbara Aerospace, who while 100% American has had airlines hijack their own planes to prevent further damage during maintance.

I would rather be on a plane serviced by TACA, a reputable airline, than one serviced by one of the dozens of third rate mantainence contractors around the United States who opperate with little to no FAA oversight.

JetBlue does however intend to bring heavy maintainence in-house eventually, start-up airlines never do their own maintainence.

http://www.aeroman.taca.com/index.html

[UL_Approved]

10. That is interesting

That comment makes sense when you think about it. The FAA has been in the airlines back pocket for years now, and it hasn't stepped up to the call of making aircraft safe. These other regulatory bodies around the world cannot be any worse. And who knows, maybe this will INCREASE safety. Only time and research will tell us if this is a good move.

[NYC]

11. When will the U.S. be totally job free?

Is there an anticipated completion date for all this outsourcing?

[high density]

12. Wow, my opinion of Jet Blue just went down the tubes

I guess I'll never fly on them after all.

[MADem]

22. Jet Blue sucks

They gave their passenger lists to TSA, to "experiment on."

If you have flown Jet Blue, you should figure your entire life has been scrutinized by some nameless government employee, and is stashed in some computer against the day that you do anything that could tag you as an enemy of the state.

Welcome to weecowboyland....

[MADem]

13. THE SICKEST PART ABOUT THIS FOOLISH CHARADE

...is that United States based Airframe and Powerplant mechanics have to endure a very thorough FBI background check, but the guys doing the repairs in El Sal and SINGAPORE (land of many Asian Muslims) get NO CHECKS--none, zero, zip, NADA. The supervisors, who fly in and out on occasion, have the checks, but the workers don't. It's a JOKE. Only it isn't funny.

This is a fucking disaster waiting to happen. But in the name of CHEAP LABOR, the industry takes the risk. It's just so absurd....

[American Renaissance]

14. uhh...

The checks you go through to get anywhere near a plane in Singapore are brutal. It's a police state.

[MADem]

17. But it ain't an eff bee eye check

So long as you pay your taxes, don't criticize the ruling party, or spit on the sidewalk or chew gum in Singapore, you're a-OK. It ain't the same mindset. So what if you go on holiday for six weeks, and take a side trip to some desert outpost, to learn how to fiddle with essential equipment? Who will know? Singapore may be a police state, but their reach is not the reach of say, the US government, or Mossad, or the People's Republic of China...of course, there are "sharing of intel" relationships, but you can never be really assured unless you've done the work yourself.

I simply point to the irony of the entire issue. We put our own, most of whom are ex-military, through the fucking wringer to get a license that they can't use because their jobs are being exported overseas, and those who have no certifiable bona fides are given carte blanche, all for the profit of the CEOs and shareholders.

It is absurd.

[American Renaissance]

29. dealing with Singapore is a nightmare,

The government of Singapore keeps more information on its residents than any other country on earth. It is the most effective police state in human history. Their reach over their residents is more controlling than anywhere else on the planet.

If they can't document every second of your life from the age of twelve onwards, you can't get a job draining sewage at the airport, let alone do maintainence work.

Their monitoring of their muslim population would make John Ashcroft jizz himself. Lee Kuan Yew is a fucking lunatic, he is practically insane.

There are alot of things about Singapore that are a cause for concern, but... aviation security is not one of them.

We have a muslim woman from Singapore here who is almost insane about saving airline boarding passes, hotel receipts, she insists that her passport be stamped everywhere, even where not required, because when she returns, if she can't document every toilet she pissed in, she isn't going to get her clearance back.

[GRLMGC]

15. I understand that outsourcing is a problem

and people lose their jobs here but I'm certainly going to take offense at your suggestion that Salvadorans are incompetent workers. Being upset about losing jobs here is understandable but saying that Salvadorans or other brown people for that matter can't get a job done is racist. Like a poster above said, they indeed have safety standards. Just because they come from a third world country doesn't mean they're backwards.

[MADem]

18. Who said they were incompetent?

Except maybe the Wall Street Journal.

The complaint that I have is that we scruitinize our own people up the asshole, and these guys waltz in with no background checks and do the work for a fourth of the cost, but WE DO NOT KNOW THEM. And we DO NOT CARE. It's all about the bottom line.

A lot of A + P mechanics in the US are brown...quite brown, in fact. Of course, you have apparently made the assumption that this is a white game, and you have assumed incorrectly. I know about seven A+P mechs. Six of them are not of European ancestry. Excluding the Puerto Rican and the Chicano, the remainder are decendants of American slaves, who joined the Army, got their certs, and off they go post-Nam to happily bend wrenches on American aircraft, live their lives, and support their families. It's brown and black AMERICANS getting fucked in this situation, just like their Whitie union brothers.

Take your "racism" and put it up on the shelf--this ain't about racism. This is about searching tax-paying, god-fearing, voting grandma at the airport, and letting any old asshole fix the plane she rides in.

[GRLMGC]

19. All these little comments about

not flying anymore because it's unsafe imply incompetence on the part of the worker. Any old asshole, that's nice. Those are workers who have been trained. They shouldn't get U.S. jobs but don't fucking denigrate them either. Keep telling yourself that it's not about racism, implying that a non-American isn't good enough to do a job because he is too "backwards".

[MADem]

21. Oh PLEASE

You seek to imply issues that do not exist. Many--MANY--American A + P mechs are MINORITIES (thank the United States Army and the VietNam Draft for that). What you are saying, then, is that it's just fine to screw African-AMERICANS, and Hispanic-AMERICANS, but those foreigners who may be non-European in ancestry, and who don't support our economy in any way, shape or form, should somehow get special preference, simply BECAUSE they are brown and/or foreign. And even though they don't meet our standards, or those standards cannot be verified, let's not criticize them, because they are foreign (oh, and brown, too!). Nonsense! As an end result, the pockets of wealthy airline CEOs, who ARE AMERICANS, mostly WHITE, mostly MEN, are enriched. Where's your outrage about that?

I did not "denigrate" anyone, and I didn't see anyone else do so on this thread, either. Americans have a right to insist upon verifiable safety standards. Under the outsourcing scenario, there IS NO RELIABLE VERIFICATION. And I certainly won't sit by and cheer on this effort while our aviation industry and security ARE compromised, and American minorities (as well as white men) put on the unemployment line. And I have loved ones who work in the industry, and I would prefer that they fly in aircraft that have a verifiable, accountable safety standard associated with the maintenance of the aircraft in which they are embarked.

Cut the "racist" bullshit. It does not fly, it is not germane to the issue, and you are hoisting a false flag with regard to it. Why, I have no idea. This has nothing to do with racism, and everything to do with CORPORATE PROFIT.

Why do you support the CEOs of these airlines? You say you are supporting the Salvadorans, or the Singaporeans, but in actual fact, you are telling your fellow citizens, many of whom learned their craft during a shitty, rotten war, to step aside and let people who aren't paying into Social Security, who do not advance our economy in any way (and in fact, push us into service economy status) work at cheap, slave labor rates, to FURTHER enrich the AMERICAN wealthy.

Get a grip. You aren't seeing the full picture. Maybe if the CEO's took a little less, the American worker--all of them, of all colors and ethnicities-- could keep pace.

For the record, I spent a period of time involved with training workers in aviation maintenance overseas. The standards are NOT the same, and anyone currently in the industry knows it.

[GRLMGC]

23. Self delete

Not a good moment

[tx_dem41]

24. Well, I'm not sure people prone to such rash behavior and anger...

...should be maintaining a plane.:eyes:

[GRLMGC]

25. My bad behavior (and yes it was awful)

has nothing to do w/ other people. I don't "maintain" airplanes so what are you talking about?

[tx_dem41]

26. Thanks for replying and acknowledging.

And, I'm sorry I screwed up on your occupation.

[GRLMGC]

28. No, I shouldn't have gotten so angry

I was shaking. I've calmed down since and I should have calmed down before responding.

[babylonsister]

16. My husband works for a fairly major airline

that has been doing this for years. I'm thinking about 9-10 years, and he was involved with the program when it first started to happen. This story suggests it's a horrible thing, but the facts are that the contractor is in frequent touch with the FAA, as was this airline's employees and the FAA, checking their manuals to assure nothing would go awry. This is their livelihood and their job, airline employees and others.
Final word: don't worry, relax!

[leesa]

20. Yikes. I hope they don't remeber any of the shenanigans we pulled in

their country.

[Blue_Tires]

30. why can't the corporations ever realize

that outsourcing, while maybe helpful for the short term bottom line, will come back to kill you later...

[struggle4progress]

31. Nothing like a history of death squads killing unionists ...

... to keep those labor costs down.

[reprobate]

32. It's not the guys who work on the aircraft.

It's the bosses who determine how much time to put into a job.

Anyone remember the Alaska Air that went down on the ocean off LA?

[zann725]

33. Is there anything we're NOT outsourcing?

n/t