Sadly Kev I have to agree with you.. But have been in MEM for so long my friends here make it worth it as well as my job but this is about the last place I would want to live if I was to put it up against other places. The cost of living is a lot better than where I grew up though. But hey it can be exciting here I never had a gun pulled on me till I came here...lol
Life Without A Union
- Thread starter Birdman
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Sadly Kev I have to agree with you.. But have been in MEM for so long my friends here make it worth it as well as my job but this is about the last place I would want to live if I was to put it up against other places. The cost of living is a lot better than where I grew up though. But hey it can be exciting here I never had a gun pulled on me till I came here...lol
WorldTraveler
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the AM announcement is really two deals - one to secure cooperation with AM in the passenger business... AM is the 2nd most valuable airline from a strategic perspective after the merged LAN/TAM... which won't end up in Skyteam or as a DL partner regardless of where it goes. Apparently DL had some fears that AM could have jumped ship - esp. in light of the shutdown of MX....
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the 2nd part of the deal is the maintenance cooperation .... I'm sure some would say I'm naive but I tend to believe that when they call it a joint venture for maintenance it will mean the same thing it has meant w/ passenger JVs... both sides throw in what they do best and the WHOLE is better than either of the parts - and each part is bigger because of being in the WHOLE.
I would strongly bet that DL needs a partner to offer lower value like overhaul maintenance and intends to use the AM maintenance JV to allow DL to market full service maintenance w/ DL keeping the most valuable engine and component maintenance. It is also very possible that some of the Asian outsourced overhauls will come to Mexico.
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I think cooperation on maintenance will give DL and AM an advantage by allowing both to focus on what they can do well while recognizing they have a partner that be more market competitive in doing some things.
eolesen
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I think there's a lot more than just cheap labor going on here... Newsflash to some, but the US is business unfriendly when it comes to industrial facilities.
Simply complying with building & environmental codes can double or triple the cost of a structure, and adds overhead into operations. God forbid you want to use chemicals to strip metal, or operate a paint shop.
Ever wonder why some railroads don't repaint their equipment very often? The EPA made it too expensive. It's cheaper to replace the equipment after it rusts out than it is to keep a paint facility licensed.
It's the same reason we import more and more of our refined oil products instead of building new refineries in Texas. It's cheaper to refine off-shore and bake the transportation cost into the retail price...
There's a balance to be struck between ensuring safety, and allowing companies to do business without too much interference. Big government fans haven't figured that out yet.
Simply complying with building & environmental codes can double or triple the cost of a structure, and adds overhead into operations. God forbid you want to use chemicals to strip metal, or operate a paint shop.
Ever wonder why some railroads don't repaint their equipment very often? The EPA made it too expensive. It's cheaper to replace the equipment after it rusts out than it is to keep a paint facility licensed.
It's the same reason we import more and more of our refined oil products instead of building new refineries in Texas. It's cheaper to refine off-shore and bake the transportation cost into the retail price...
There's a balance to be struck between ensuring safety, and allowing companies to do business without too much interference. Big government fans haven't figured that out yet.
You got a negative review but you are exactly right. My dad had a small business in the early 80's in north jersey. He rebuilt diesel engines and mostly components like cylinder heads and turbos well he had a steam cleaner to clean the parts and that went into an oil water separator and the discharge at the end was a minuscule amount of oil. The EPA came and shut him down made him spent thousands for a self contained unit for cleaning and then pay thousands to have an "EPA" certified waste specialist remove the waste water. He said screw it I am shutting down its not worth it. Meanwhile right up the road the Sandoz pharma plant was discharging huge amounts of pink liquid into the river but no one said anything to them. Gee wonder why? They have a huge payroll to pay off the politicians and they come after little man who is struggling to make ends meat. F'k this government its all about the money..I am not surprised no one enters into a small business in this country anymore.
chris perry
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Your right it's all about the money.They would rather contract it out to some foriegn country and make even more cash... rather than keep small business healthy. I have news for big business and congress,if the middle class has no money there will be no recovery.... 70% of the economy is consumer spending....
Word is the new JV will allow DL to move the 757 HMV checks that are currently being done in SAT and other MROs to be moved sort of inhouse so we have better control of the quality. Right now the 757 PSV lines in ATL are dealing with the poorly done overhauls. We have also been told the JV will allow us to bring in more airframe work. Also the 767 HMV checks could possibly move there once the narrow body lines are up and running.
Could they move the PSV checks from ATL? I doubt they would have the space with narrow body and wide body HMV's.
WorldTraveler
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correct... the whole purpose of the JV is to lend DL's expertise to AM to build a quality MRO and allow AM to do the maintenance which DL cannot cost effectively do in-house while allowing DL to bid on complete aircraft maintenance that it cannot presently win because it includes airframe overhauls that no US airline based MRO is doing to any significant scale. DL will pick off the highest value work from the new business it wins - and that will be done by DL employees in ATL. In return, DL consolidates its current outsourced work to a location where it has control and where it also is an owner.
By focusing on what DL does well and partnering w/ someone else to do what DL cannot do cost effectively, DL will increase its MRO business to the benefit of not only all DL Tech Ops employees, but also other DL employees in other areas of the company.
One of those MRO's wouldn't happen to be Timco would it? As you may know they are doing 4 of AA's 757 heavy's so there will be a lot of focus on their work.
SAT is doing most of our 757 HMV work right now. In the past small groups of aircraft have gone to Timco, Lake City as well as other MRO's.
signals
Veteran
I can respect a non-union shop like B-scab, but Delta wiped out :40K+ union jobs yet their pilots are unions while their lower life-forms are non-unions that have a problem with union labor. To the Delta hypocrites...Bite Me! 😛
metopower
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As a Delta pilot I resent your comment about "lower life forms" ... real class!! Besides they voted to be non union .Delta forced nothing on anyone. Free choice is something you are not familiar with I guess.
I seem to remember there being a vote involved in there somewhere. If we wanted unions we would have voted them in.
signals
Veteran
Actually, the US is very business friendly, just have to grease the right palms. Apparently the parts side over bid the paint side, sort of speak!
signals
Veteran
Really fair since Delta employees outnumbered NWA 2 to 1! The drones were already pre-programmed. I resent the fact that your non-union employees tend to insult unions as a whole, and you the pilots allow them to do so. 😛
