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Outsourcing is a growing trend. Employees in all industries are seeing their employers outsourcing more and more work — some to U.S. contractors, some to foreign countries.

Aircraft maintenance outsourcing has been in the news again recently. As we reported last week, United mechanics handed out pamphlets nationwide urging the company not to outsource its Mileage Plus and maintenance units. In another news story yesterday, it was reported that AMR Corporation (parent company of American Airlines) intends to sell its American Eagle regional airline next year. AMR shareholders have been pressuring American to sell the regional airline and other assets, moves they believe could raise money and raise AMR’s stock price. Other assets that could be on the chopping block in the future might include the airline’s maintenance unit and its repair and overhaul operations.

When looking at outsourcing, airlines are looking at one thing — money. They are looking at how to save the most money in order to create the best value for their shareholders. They want to concentrate on their core business while outsourcing other non-core business units. To them, they see the operations side of their companies as their core business. They fly people from point A to point B. That is what they do. The rest of the stuff like reward programs and maintenance are seen as non-core business units.

But what are the long-term effects of outsourcing? By outsourcing maintenance, airlines experience a loss of aircraft knowledge and technical expertise. They are depending on other companies for the maintenance and safe operation of their airplanes.

The public has been in an uproar recently over toys. But if you look at the criticism of what went wrong with outsourcing toy manufacturing, you could easily replace “toy manufacturing” with “outsourced maintenance.” Buzz words are, pardon the pun, flying around — words like “sub-standard practices,” “improper procedures” and “inadequate government oversight” come to mind.

But while the public is in an angry uproar over sub-standard toys, there is barely a whisper of anger when it comes to outsourcing airline maintenance. It’s not because they aren’t aware of the practice — the mainstream media continues to report on the topic. Yet, the flying public does not respond. They remain indifferent to the issue. Could it be because the flying public is addicted to low ticket prices? Like toys, airline tickets have become a commodity, with customers making purchasing decisions based on the lowest ticket price, not even considering for a moment the quality of the airline’s maintenance.

The flying public has the power to influence the airlines. If they are concerned about maintenance, they could choose not to fly on airlines that outsource their maintenance. The airlines would then have to respond or go out of business.

But that is not the case…

…yet.

Thanks for reading,

Joe Escobar

Our weekly electronic newsletter is going out a day early this week because of Thanksgiving. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I would like to share some thanks.

I would like to thank Kathy Marr (the former publisher of AMT), Michelle Garetson (former editor) and the rest of the AMT staff who gave this A&P/IA a chance seven years ago to become a part of the magazine I had read and enjoyed for years. It was the opportunity of a lifetime!

I would like to thank Greg Napert (a fellow A&P), the founding editor of AMT, who has helped me grow even more as an editor since he re-joined the magazine staff four years ago as publisher.

I want to thank our editorial team — Barb Zuehlke (our managing editor), and Dionne Shearer (our assistant editor). All of this would not be possible without all of their hard work and dedication.

I would like to thank Danny Faupel, Bob Graf, Jon Jezo, and Julie Suhr, our sales staff, who support our advertisers and help them market their products and services to our readers in this ever-changing industry.

I would like to thank our advertisers. Without their support, we could not publish AMT for free to more than 41,000 aircraft maintenance professionals around the world.

I must also thank all of the staff here at Cygnus for their ongoing support. From our graphics and production department to our interactive group, it is truly a team effort to publish AMT and produce content for AMTonline.com.

To our contributors, another thank you is in order. Steve Prentice, Joe Hertzler, Bill O’Brien, Brandon Battles, Jim Sparks, James Careless, Giacinta Bradley-Koontz and Ian Parker are an imporrtant part of the AMT family.

I need to thank Tom Hendershot, executive director of AMTSociety, and all the AMTSociety board members and AMTSociety members. AMTSociety has grown a lot this past year, and we look forward to continued growth as we continue to expand benefits and resources for its members.

But most importantly, I would like to thank the readers of AMT and our online community on AMTonline.com. You are the reason we go to work each morning. You are the reason we are the number one maintenance publication.

I have always thought that those acceptance speeches at awards ceremonies were sappy, with thanks going on and on for way too long. After sitting down to write this blog, I realize how difficult it is to share thanks without leaving anyone out. If I were to list all the people that deserved thanks, you would be reading this blog for hours. I won’t do that, so my thanks to everyone else I left out.

On behalf of the AMT team, I would like to wish everyone a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Thanks for reading!

Joe Escobar

You may have heard the phrase, “It flew in, it’ll fly out” on the hangar floor before. I have heard it several times, usually in jest when a major defect was found during aircraft inspection.

But a New Zealand pilot took this phrase to a whole new level. The New Zealand Herald reported today that a pilot was fined $10,000 after putting a cracked component back on a plane. The pilot, Paul Ensor, is the owner of Island Air Charters. Last July, an aircraft engineer (mechanic) was inspecting the company’s Cessna 210 when he found a crack on the nose landing gear. The gear was sent off for repair, but the engineer working on the gear could not repair it and sent the defective part back to Island Air Charters.

When the gear arrived back at the facility, Ensor (who is not an engineer) decided that the landing gear was not damaged and put the landing gear back on the aircraft himself, flying the aircraft 18 times and carrying 80 passengers with the cracked gear.

The CAA suspended Ensor’s pilot’s certificate. The court sentenced him to a maximum 12 months prison or $10,000. The court also ordered that he not fly for 6 months.

They say that the person that represents himself in a court of law has an idiot for an attorney. I guess this pilot, who performed his own maintenance, has an idiot for a mechanic.

You can read the full story here.

Thanks for reading.

It has been all over the news — the Bush administration is pushing for more government oversight in order to restore public confidence in imported products like toys and food. The administration’s proposal calls for increased on-site inspections. Instead of relying on spot inspections of foreign-produced products as they enter the U.S., the proposal would shift focus to catching bad products before they are ever exported.

This is an example of the reactionary mentality that the government seems to have. Instead of being proactive and ensuring the imported products were safe to begin with, it now must react to increasing public anger in the wake of recent events.

But what about maintenance oversight? As AMT reported in June , PASS (the union representing FAA employees) has been saying for some time it doesn’t have the resources to properly oversee foreign repair stations. Tom Brantley, national president of PASS said in June, “Inspector staffing has not kept pace with the exploding outsourcing business and nearly half of the workforce will be eligible to retire by 2010; yet, the FAA is refusing to take any steps to rectify the situation.”

We cannot afford to be reactionary when it comes to FAA oversight of foreign repair stations. We need to make sure that foreign repair stations are properly inspected and held to the same standards as U.S. repair stations are. It would be a shame if our government waits until a major incident or accident until it addresses this issue.

Thanks for reading,

Joe Escobar