Bye to 6 Airbus Narrow Bodies this weekend

[AOG-N-IT]

Affective 5/6 April 03....6ea. Airbus Narrow Bodies will depart PIT for MHV (Mojave desert) for Storage.

Rumors are abundant as to why these Acft are being (Company Quote) Retired

The truth of the matter is Pending S-Checks that have yet to be ironed out as to where they were to be done...and at what price?

Further rumors indicate stumbling blocks regarding thier Lease Agreements not meeting thier targeted goals on certain Acft too.

GE also made the leases sweeter on our older Boeings too.

Many will conclude that this is mearly a reduction of Acft while we are in leaner times....Let me tell you up front , this has been forecasted for months now....all the while we have been bringing back B737-300/400's back from the MHV Desert.

PIT Heavy Maintenance is absolutely swamped with C-Checks and Q-Checks on our B737 Fleet....too bad we don't have the required manpower to meet the task at hand. Many Docks in PIT are operating with as few as 8 Mechanics per shift at times....Utility is too short to get everything cleaned and readied all too often as well. I will give them due credit , They Try!!

The Airbus retirement procedures are as follows.

(1) Remove HF Radio Trancievers and Couplers (Accomplish with EA's)

(2) Remove GTE Phones and Install blanking plates (Accomplish with EA's)

(3) Remove Wheelchair

(4) Remove EEMK (Emergency Medical Kit)

(5) Remove Defibulator

(6) Remove Life Vests from seats

(7) Remove Pillows,Blankets Evac Cards , Magazines from seat backs.

(8) De-Cater Acft...Leave Carts and etc on Acft.

(9) Drain and Flush all Lavs...and Service One Lave for Flight Crew usage in route

(10) Ship enough seat covers to cover seats with GTE Phones removed.

(11) Accomplish Log Book Check Overnight Cleaning and Overnight Check for departure.

So much for the big investment we've made in the Airbus products.....less than 5 years into this venture...and we are parking them. Fleet rationalization my eye!!

 

[a320av8r]

These Airbus'' were scheduled to be "temporarily" parked. GE owns the leases on 9 more 737''s coming out of the desert and 5% of US. Will park 1 757 and 1 767 too.

 

[LavMan]

AOG-N-IT is correct, the Airbii are being retired because the S checks which is a five year time limited heavy checks are coming due this fall, the first airplanes 700 and 701 are due this October, the guise is to park them, contract out the heavy check then release them as the company is trying to circumvent the IAM mechanic and related contract. The IAM has made the company aware of what their intentions are.

Also,AOG-N-IT you need to tell planners that they airbus are a vacuam lav system, you can't service "one" lav. It has a central dump point and a 55 gallon waste tank which service all three lavs. Why do I not expect planing not to know this, how sad.

Also we have all ready parked three 757s, 615, 616 and 618, and one 767 A/C 647, which was ferried from MHV-BRU for a c-check and is being leased to Transaero of Russia, there are no more 757s or 767s scheduled to be parked, we are running short of widebodies as we speak.

 

[nycbusdriver]

They need to find a "Spelling Challenged" mechanic to go find all those "defibulators."

 

[ISP]

I am suprised that 647 is being leased to a Russian company. What is the reasoning behind that? How are they planning on flying Dublin/Shannon while simultaneously decreasing the number of widebodies in the fleet? Will the 767 be eliminated from CLT-LAX and CLT-MCO flights all together?

airliners.net has a photo of 647 dated early march showing it at Mojave being "prepped to come back into service with the airline." I guess they are mistaken about that.

 

[a320av8r]

I heard in recurrent training today that the military wants to use ALL of our 330''s for CRAF.

 

[AtlanticBeach]

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On 4/3/2003 8:22:38 PM nycbusdriver wrote:

They need to find a "Spelling Challenged" mechanic to go find all those "defibulators."

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You never know when someones fibula is going to stop working. I broke mine running a marathon several years ago and really could have used a defibulator.

 

[MarkMyWords]

AOG and LAVman,

I agree that when I first heard that they were going to "retire" Airbus Aircraft that they were going to try and find a way to get the S check done outside of the company and then bring the aircraft back. But now I hae seen the list of the first 5 to retire, and they are not the first 5 to be delivered. If it was the companies intention to park airplanes because of the S check issue, wouldn''t it have been A/C''s 700-704 that would have been parked? Instead it is A/C''s 726, 728, 729, 706 and 101. Any theories why? Could they be parking these to save time on them and then as we get closer to the S check on 700, they will swap them out one for one? Or is it truly a lease payment issue?

 

[pitguy]

A while ago this was posted as an answer to my question about vendoring out work:


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""""We are not going to outsource heavy maintenance in PIT or elsewhere. We never even proposed it. (Unlike UA which has proposed the outsourcing of heavy maintenance.)

We will pay all furlough pay as provided for in the contract.

We have no further plans to lay off more mechanics beyond what is published. With the new commitment to operate 279 a/c, we will need just about all the mechanics on the property to perform the maintenance we have scheduled, since our fleet plan anticipated retiring some planes that we will now be flying.

Finally, we are not trying to vendor maintenance with either Boeing or Airbus.

Chris Chiames""""