460 jets ordered

[Buck]

I agree, fuel costs to ferry airplanes is an issue, but wage savings can more than pay that extra expense.

AA says a narrowbody heavy C check happens every 5-6 years and takes 20,000 to 30,000 man-hours to accomplish.

Assuming that the Salvadoran hack-shop employees take twice as long as the skilled AA AMTs, the fact that they work for next to nothing covers that cost as well. WN manages to ferry some planes to SAL for overhaul and WN doesn't even serve SAL - AA serves SAL and can route its narrowbodies there the same way it routes planes to TUL. Heavy C checks are rare but expensive events, which is completely different than line maintenance.

Good points. I liken line maintenance to buying milk for the kids. Milk is heavy and perishable, so it wouldn't matter if milk cost just $0.25/gal in SAL or another part of the world - I can't buy it halfway around the world and carry it home. Wouldn't matter to me if it were that cheap at a store 200 miles away - the gas costs would wipe out the savings of driving several hours to buy a few gallons every few days. Line maintenance is very similar - it has to be purchased where the planes are each day/night.

But heavy overhaul? That's akin to buying jewelry or electronic toys. Small and liight and I can buy it in China or anywhere else I'm traveling if I find a good deal (taking into account US customs duties/taxes/etc) because the workers make much less money (especially applicable to jewelry). AA flies its widebodies all over the world and just like UA/CO and DL/NW, some of those heavy overhauls could happen in HKG, SIN, PVG, etc.

AA flies its narrowbodies all over the northern half of the western hemisphere, and some of those places (like SAL) feature very low-paid workforces that, given enough time, can hack apart an airplane and put it back together again for lower total cost than the highly skilled AMTs in places like Tulsa, Fort Worth and, until recently, Kansas City. There's plenty of domestic shops that, given some lead time, could chop apart an AA narrowbody and reassemble it - like in Mobile, Alabama or Indy. And even though those guys make more money than the SAL employees, they are cheaper than paying AA employees anything like UPS or WN wages in Tulsa or Fort Worth to do the same work.

First, I am going to defer to some of the forum economists as to the cost of a Heavy C and the time to complete the check.

As I understand, airlines subject to FAA scrutiny have to responsibility to their customers to provide safe equipment for a safe flight. I have heard stories of AA mechanics having to repair the "hack jobs" before a safe flight can commence. If Heavy C's are so expensive then why has AA not taken the option. This would mean that the 9 757 that are going to the lowest bidder, are going to end up in SAL. The aircraft are being farmed out are being sent out because the yields are off and there is no more capacity at TULE for any other fleet types. The 737's are coming close, however it sounds like a good plan is in place to prevent this from happening.

Why doesn't AA farm out it's Line Maintenance? It should be easy enough to obtain work visa's for the cheap labor. As for OH, it is turn times. AA does not have the lead time you speak of. A empty airplane is not providing an ROI for anyone. If it did there would be service to San Frisco, NY. and Boston D.C.. It could be that the twice as long may not be enough to cover the cost rest of the parts of the check. Especially the parts process. No one can afford to keep enough parts on hand to handle the 737, unless the chop shop is hold these parts tax free. OH is not looking for wages equal to UPS or WN, OH is looking for restoration and a decent raise and benefit increase that they gave to the company. If the line can achieve UPS and or WN wages than more power to them. That is what many do not understand on this board. There are some on this forum that sell the line out or visa versa. So much anger that should be directed not at the negotiators, but at the union and the company. It reminds me of Democrats and Republicans and the Debt Ceiling Act. Also places like SAL or other chop shops do not perform the same work. Unless you mean that TULE, AFW and DWH are chop shops , but they must be tested for the product that provides for the major economy of SAL et al.

 

[Buck]

One question, why do foreign carriers and competitors still send OH work to American carriers such as AA or Delta or UAL whenever they can? North American didn't pack up and send their Aircraft to El Salvador because they felt they could get it done cheaper, AA sent them packing because they had too much of our own work to do. Delta reportedly got into a bind with a European carrier after they tried to subcontract out a heavy check that carrier had contracted Delta to do, the carrier demanded that Delta mechanics do the work because thats what they were paying for. If all that cheap skilled labor is just sitting out there waiting for work on planes from the US why would foreign carriers still send work into the US, still send work to AA, Delta and UAL?

Last time I checked more aviation work was still being sent into the US than sent out.

Another thing you leave out of your theory is capacity. How many more checks could those places do with the facilities and manpower available? And, since the majority of the growth is projected to be outside the US, especially Asia, who is to say that in a few years they dont do what AA and other American carriers have often done in the past and tell their 3P customers that they simply dont have the capability to continue to provide them service? You say there's plenty of places to do the work but I doubt that. Who would maintain capacity just for the sake of maintaining capacity? It's not nearly as easy to ramp up as you make it out to be, building the hangars is the easiest part, getting the skilled labor is where the challenge lies. Our skills are portable and this industry is still getting less and less attractive. It took NWA nearly two years at one of the most advantageous of times as far as having a surplus of mechanics, nearly every carrier had hundreds of mechanics on the street. Even then, the fact is NWA is now gone and they never did return to their former self before Delta took them over. That well is pretty much dry. The overwhelming majority of those who left are not coming back. Sure they can hire people with mechanical abilities that dont have an A&P and try and get them to work but the fact is those people, since they invested nothing, are even more likely to leave the industry, and of course the only way they are going to get them is to increase wages.



Sure but time is money as well, isn't it? An aircraft sitting on the ground continues to cost money.

One last thing, you keep comparing what chop shops both domestic and foreign pay their workers as if we have to meet that in order to be competitive when in fact the more relevant figure is what do those shops charge per hour and how many hours do they get charged for? If the guy in Tulsa gets paid the UPS rate of $50/hr but can accomplish the task in one hour and the chop shop charges the book rate of three hours for the job and charges AA $150 then does it really matter that the guy in the chop shop is only getting $25/hr? Dont forget that I and many others have worked in those shops at one point or another and thats how it goes. Even if the job took one hour if the book says its a three hour job thats what the customer gets charged.

I have heard that Spartan School of Aeronautics in TUL is laying off staff due to the lack of students?????

 

[Frank Szabo]

I have heard that Spartan School of Aeronautics in TUL is laying off staff due to the lack of students?????

A little tidbit from the late 80s.

I had been giving consideration to attending Spartan to do the A&P thing so I called and made an appointment for one of the walk-throughs they were doing at the time. Upon showing up and walking to the door to check in, I walked past a black fellow who I thought was having a smoke before going in himself, but that wasn't the case at all - he was finishing up the last of his joint - not a word was said by anyone, even the school's personnel.

After the presentation when the contracts came out to be signed, this clown tried to sign his and only with much assistance from the school employee was he able to see where to sign the contract, which he did. The tuition amount that I saw on his contract was $26,000.

I decided then and there that I wasn't going to waste my money on Spartan. Even though I'd already had the Powerplant and General portions of the instruction in the Navy, I didn't have the Airframe part and wanted to learn it. What I saw that day (and what I heard many say about Spartan later on), their "Course of Instruction" seemed more like a "Buy a License From Us" type of arrangement - wasn't interested.

Re: them laying off, I haven't a clue. With the tuition at one of the local tech schools amounting to $6-$8k for their 2 year programs (i'm told), I can certainly believe and understand why they're having trouble finding students.

 

[Flying low]

Re: them laying off, I haven't a clue. With the tuition at one of the local tech schools amounting to $6-$8k for their 2 year programs (i'm told), I can certainly believe and understand why they're having trouble finding students.

And a Junior in high school with good grades can go to that tech school for free. Just have to pay for books and supplies.

 

[WorldTraveler]

The global market will adapt if demand is there to increase the amount of overhauls.... whether it be at shops in the US or overseas.
.
It took NW time to put a new maintenance program in place and there were huge issues during that phase of adaptation but the market adapted.
.
Assuming that AA maintenance jobs are safe because there is no place to do that work is dangerous, esp. in the company succeeds at ordering a bunch of new airplanes which require less maintenance for several years anyway.

 

[AA767JET]

I was wondering if anyone knows who will be doing the maintenance on the airbuses ???
Will we be doing it or will AA buy a service contract for each airbus aircraft ??

Thanks~

 

[Hopeful]

Re: them laying off, I haven't a clue. With the tuition at one of the local tech schools amounting to $6-$8k for their 2 year programs (i'm told), I can certainly believe and understand why they're having trouble finding students.

And a Junior in high school with good grades can go to that tech school for free. Just have to pay for books and supplies.

It's not the tuition cost that's keeping people out of the aviation schools. People know how the airlines destroyed a once good and proud career. Why should they work weekends, nights, and holidays in all kinds of weather for a salary no better than anywhere else?

 

[Buck]

It's not the tuition cost that's keeping people out of the aviation schools. People know how the airlines destroyed a once good and proud career. Why should they work weekends, nights, and holidays in all kinds of weather for a salary no better than anywhere else?

Mostly correct. In Tulsa, there are two prominent schools. Spartan and Tulsa Tech. I believe that Tulsa Tech is much less expensive.

 

[Ingle22]

American flying Airbus is almost embarassing. Its called American Airlines for a reason. FLY AMERICAN MADE AIRPLANES!!!

 

[FWAAA]

It's not the tuition cost that's keeping people out of the aviation schools. People know how the airlines destroyed a once good and proud career. Why should they work weekends, nights, and holidays in all kinds of weather for a salary no better than anywhere else?

True. Even young people sometimes act rationally, and not enrolling in school to obtain A&P tickets is a rational choice given pay and hiring patterns for the past 10 years or so..

The mediocre pay and lack of hiring at the majors over the past decade probably has something to do with the low numbers of aviation maintenance students. I'm confident that enrollment numbers would skyrocket if AA, DL and UA started hiring thousands of AMTs at UPS-style wages.

 

[Flying low]

Mostly correct. In Tulsa, there are two prominent schools. Spartan and Tulsa Tech. I believe that Tulsa Tech is much less expensive.

True, a high school student with good grades can even go to Tulsa Tech for free. Just have to pay for the cost of books.

 

[Bob Owens]

The cynic in me says that a subset of AMR's employees weren't happy when they were among the best paid, so where's the proof that giving raises would really make much of a difference? People regularly grumbled about their profit sharing checks were too small... never mind the fact that nobody had even seen a profit sharing check before the late 1980's...

So I take it your position is since you cant make everyone happy make everyone miserable.

 

[Bob Owens]

True. Even young people sometimes act rationally, and not enrolling in school to obtain A&P tickets is a rational choice given pay and hiring patterns for the past 10 years or so..

The mediocre pay and lack of hiring at the majors over the past decade probably has something to do with the low numbers of aviation maintenance students. I'm confident that enrollment numbers would skyrocket if AA, DL and UA started hiring thousands of AMTs at UPS-style wages.

Perhaps, but it would take at least two years before they start coming out of schools and another couple of years before they could be let loose on an airplane by themselves.

Over half the schools have closed up over the last ten years, in fact one of our "new guys" is a laid off A&P Instructor from an Aviation School on the east coast.

So lets say all of a sudden AA. DL and UA started paying UPS wages, first schools would have to be created and staffed, then certified by the FAA, then they would have to recruit students and train them for at least two years, then they would have kids that know dope and fabric but never worked a live flight with 200 people waiting to go.


Staffing schools usually isnt that hard, for many mechanics its a second job, however should the FAA start cracking down on duty times and consider being an Instructor in an FAA certified school as duty time then that would place more demand on the market as well. Sadly, I doubt they would, longer duty times and careers save the airlines a lot of money. It effeectively increases the supply of labor without increasing the number of workers needed. When the FAA rolled back mandatory retirement for the pilots from 60 to 65 AA alone claimed it lowered their liability by $1.7 billion in 2007. And the FAA has a long history of allowing money to outweigh safety.

The fact is that usually carriers such as AA, DL and UA always had a steady souce of experienced mechanics in the past,(normally 5 years was required) they would come from the military, regionals, charters, shops and Domestic carriers like todays Air Tran, and Jet Blue. Now there isnt that much of a pay difference, (in some cases the majors pay less) certainly not enough to justify moving from Louisville to New York, Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco or Dallas. People used to agree to work for less for those outfits to get the experience so they could get to the majors, now that the majors dont pay #### those places have to pay more, the majors have avoided manpower shortages by shrinking and consoliidation through mergers. Its not the first time this has happened, its just the first time they've been so successful at gutting wages and benifits, attrition and growth make the day of reckoning inevitable. Unlike the past, the major airlines cant just open the spigot and get what they need, the well is dry. The fact that laid off instructors are the new hires shows us that there isnt a new source out there, and probably wont be anytime soon.

 

[Bob Owens]

Mostly correct. In Tulsa, there are two prominent schools. Spartan and Tulsa Tech. I believe that Tulsa Tech is much less expensive.

According to BTS there are 7856 registered "air carriers" and another 228,663 general aviation aircraft in the US. While there hasnt been much growth in the Air Carrier class over the last 10 years of the chart, it actually declined, General Aviation appears to have steady growth. The number of people getting qualified to work in the industry however continues to lag attrition.


http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_01_11.html

http://www.faa.gov/data_research/aviation_data_statistics/civil_airmen_statistics/2009/

People seem to forget that General Aviation draws from the same small limited pool of A&Ps as the airlines.

Some guys that Ive worked with with for decades have actually bailed out of Commercial Aviation and started their own thing in General Aviation, and they often hire their former coworkers to work for them. The advantages are that you can work and live in less densly (costly) areas and the people you work for actually appreciate what you do for them.

When I went to A&P school nobody thought about a career in General Aviation. Only around 10% of the class actually got their tickets. An even smaller percentage stayed in the industry.

 

[Hopeful]

According to BTS there are 7856 registered "air carriers" and another 228,663 general aviation aircraft in the US.

http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_01_11.html

People seem to forget that General Aviation draws from the same small limited pool of A&Ps as the airlines.

Some guys that Ive worked with with for decades have actaully bailed out of Commercial Aviation and started their own thing in General Aviation, and they often hire their former coworkers to work for them. The advantages are that you can work and live in less densly (costly) areas and much less pressure and the people you work for actually appreciate what you do for them.

When I went to A&P school nobody thought about a career in General Aviation. Only around 10% of the class actually got their tickets. An even smaller percentage stayed in the industry.

You're right about mechanics doing their own thing in GA.....But how much would you like to wager that NONE of them want to hear the word UNION ever again!