FAA oversight of AA criticized

Do you think the departures of Martinez and Romano were a result of AA's maintenance woes?

If i had to answer your question , This is a direct result of AA cutting AMT's in 2003, SO ! my opinion is for the future, it's just going to keep getting more and more hotter for AA with the FAA , AA keeps cutting FAA keeps hunting ...... Great work bean counters your doing a fine job... :rolleyes:
 
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Do you think the departures of Martinez and Romano were a result of AA's maintenance woes?

If i had to answer your question , This is a direct result of AA cutting AMT's in 2003, SO ! my opinion is for the future, it's just going to keep getting more and more hotter for AA with the FAA , AA keeps cutting FAA keeps hunting ...... Great work bean counters your doing a fine job... :rolleyes:

It all goes hand in hand. Greg Hall began the cutting process.....remember the "no maintenance" checks he pioneered? Martinez continued the path to decimating AA maintenance.

This is what happens when the bean counters along with the blessing of upper management put profits before safety.
I am sure the pro company defenders will say that AA is as safe as it's always been and might post some charts and graphs.

But as a mechanic on the line, I can tell you that if a mechanic refuses to sign off on an item, either a supervisor, er I mean manager, will sign it. Or the manager will get a "cooperative" mechanic to sign in it off in return for a paid lunch.


I can't wait until the FAA initiates a "special" audit just for AA.
 
Another problem the bean counters created was the lack of spare parts. Reduction in spare parts saves money but increases delays and out of service aircraft. Does this really save money? Then AMT's are forced in there own way to be creative in signing off repetitive items because they were told the parts are NIS. So there goes the repeats and another look by the FAA in our maintenance practices. Of course it always comes down to the individual who takes the blame from the company or FAA when an investigation is made. You will always find someone to sign off an item for several reasons. The main reason is intimidation. I have been pressured in the past to sign items off. You learn with experience. I had examples in the past such as: The plane is full of passengers and we need to get it out of here or This is the second equipment swap and we will lose the flight if we take a delay for maint. or If we try to fix it it will delay the flight and the crew goes illegal. The best one is always around the holidays. These passengers need to get home to their love ones for the holidays. A real tear jerker. The FAA could care less if you were pressured since YOU signed the item off just to move the metal. Our maintenance practices were one of the best back in the 80's and 90's. The main reason was because you had airline people running the airline and inventory was plentiful. The employees were better motivated back then. We actually had something to look forward too. Now we have to be careful because everyone is watching you including the FAA.
No one is going to back you up if you get in trouble. The company already has proven this.
Work safe and use common sense when signing off an item.
 
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dw...aa.414bdd6.html



Last paragraph says a civil penalty will be issued in the coming weeks. I think it's gonna be a record breaker.

Do you think the departures of Martinez and Romano were a result of AA's maintenance woes?

FAA is grandstanding. They overlook a lot more than they should and work a bit too closely with senior board members. I can't say more than that, mention any names of course. However I remember two years ago the AMOC written and FAA approved after the fact (hyd pump wiring modification) reflected more Chapter 20 than the strict A.D. images which were very very poor and hard to follow. Our work was excellent in the first place. Were there a few exceptions? Sure, but very few and no problems because of it. Oh sure, we are more detail oriented than before. That may be the positive outcome. WE will send back more of the docs RED-LINED to engineering before WE use them in the future. The passengers did not deserve to suffer so much loss, delays and missed meetings because engineering and FAA had their dispute. We did the work correctly!
 
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I can't wait until the FAA initiates a "special" audit just for AA.
... for what? They'll find what they're paid to "find".

The FAA is for sale and has been for years. The fines being spoke of are no more than the paying of tribute for the ATI decision.
 
Safety ALWAYS COMES FIRST !!!
AA management should rethink that thought before something serious happens, God forbid !!!
Remember brothers don't feel pressured don't let them use your federal license as a credit card .... Stand your ground !!! :up:
 
IMHO, AA is one of the ‘last’ airlines that perform the majority of work ‘in-house’, in the USA! Now, with everyone else outsourcing work to overseas vendors, the ‘FAA minions’ concentrate their efforts on what is available.

Soon to put AA out of the overhaul business in the USA while NOT monitoring work performed overseas.

Sucks Don’t it!
B) xUT
 
IMHO, AA is one of the ‘last’ airlines that perform the majority of work ‘in-house’, in the USA! Now, with everyone else outsourcing work to overseas vendors, the ‘FAA minions’ concentrate their efforts on what is available.

Soon to put AA out of the overhaul business in the USA while NOT monitoring work performed overseas.

Sucks Don’t it!
B) xUT

Yes, but its typical.

Instead of being lauded for keeping this work stateside where its easily monitored and accomplished primarily by people trained under an FAA approved program it seems they are focusing all their efforts on AA and letting the others slide.

I think that management actually wants the attention as a means of supressing demands from their mechanics. It gives the company more leverage, "look at all the trouble we are having, we would be better off to ship the work off to El Salvador so we wouldnt have to deal with this". Its meant to instill fear in our workers, "Dont ask for more or they will just ship the work overseas". The bad PR only lasts until the next celebrity sleeps with a porn star but the contracts and the concessions last for years.
 

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