Posted on 01/21/2005 11:15:13 AM PST by null and void
There's more outsourcing of jobs -- now it's the airlines industry.
The latest, preferred location for airline maintenance? El Salvador.
The Wall Street Journal reports at least two airlines -- Jet Blue and America West -- send their planes to El Salvador for "long distance" maintenance, outsourcing the work to cut costs.
Air safety experts are said be concerned that it jeopardizes safety and makes scrutiny by regulatory agencies more difficult.
ping the usual suspects...
You beat me by seconds...Guess great minds think alike!
Or we just both read Drudge...
My daughter says America West sucks---wait till I tell her this.
As if we needed another reason!
In addition to having George Soros as their largest stockholder,
using the European aircraft Airbus instead of Boeing jets,
and turning over private passenger records to the govt.,
now we can add this one to the list!
Don't fly JETBLUE--your money is helping George Soros--and maintenance jobs are being sent overseas!! JetBlue doesn't like to publicly discuss these two facts.
Similar rumors about Northwest Airlines.
http://www.kstptv5.com/article/stories/s5516.html
ST. PAUL (AP) - An ambitious plan to expand the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport got off to a fast start when Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Northwest Airlines executives announced it last fall. But on Tuesday, Northwest mechanics and some lawmakers urged a slowdown, saying the plan puts 2,000 jobs at risk.
The "2020 Vision" expansion calls for the demolition of several Northwest maintenance hangars at the airport, to make room for more gates. With those hangars gone, mechanics' jobs would be sure to follow, said Ted Ludwig, president of Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association Local 33.
BTTT
BTTT
Who knew I was ahead of the curve 10 years ago when I stopped flying America West! I still have 200,000 skymiles with this LOUSY Airline which I NEVER use. However, it's a Win-Win: They don't respect me as a passenger/customer and I take my business to Delta and American.
The US has the highest standards of Aircraft Maintenance in the world.
I finance US manufactured aircraft for export to foreign countries.
I can not finance a US manufactured aircraft for export if that aircraft has been maintained outside of the US.
There is a good reason for that and it has nothing to do with free trade.
And that's not even to mention the benefits of using El Salvador's well-known 'world-class aircraft maintenance'! <-rolling eyes
Every knows that if you want cheap, productive, and the highest-quality jet maintenance--El Salvador is the place to go!! <--sarcasm off
I think there might be a few US troops on leave who could use some skymiles. (For that matter, I wouldn't mind a couple thousand myself!)
I'm sure that as the largest stockholder in JetBlue-George Soros has no problem at all with JetBlue OUTSOURCING it's maintenance to El Salvador.
Where are all the 'Free-Trader' comments on this one???
You get what you pay for...
Beats me! (Maybe cuz it isn't China?)
<--still waiting for someone to step up on this one
I'd like to hear Greg Mankiw explain the benefits of outsourcing on this one....lol
It's not just the jobs, think about the security...
Not one "Free-Trader" Freeper has responded yet.
Anybody know if this is phase type maintenance? I also wonder if America West is doing just AirBus work down there?
Regardless, I wonder how the FAA is supposed to monitor work done outside the country?
The FAA makes regular visits to the maintenence facility in Costa Rica.
Especially if we can get the work done in the quality, world-class, state-of-the-art engineering facilities in Costa Rica and El Salvador with all the high-tech engineers and technicians that those two countries have to offer? All that we have to do is send the FAA down there to inspect them, right?
BTW, George Soros now controls almost 17 million shares of JetBlue!!
Don't fly JetBlue!!
I work in the industry. You don't have to worry about too much maintenence outsourcing happening, due to 1. FAA regulations and 2. the logistics of the industry (not cost effective to outsource all maintenence out of country. A LOT MORE than labor costs are involved when maintaining a plane).
It all doesn't matter as every carrier save Southwest is losing money. We have WAY TOO MUCH capacity out there for the trunk carriers to return to profitability, no matter how much "cost cutting" they do.
BTW: I fly Continental, Southwest, and United (which may go bye-bye next year, most likely merging with another carrier). Never was impressed with Jet Blue, although Jeff Neeleman is a good guy.
Proud "Free Trader" here. Then again, I derive my living from international trade. Always have.
I only want lazy, disgruntled, greedy American union workers to fix my planes!
Why is this an issue?
Honestly, I worked for America West when we outsourced all maintenance to third parties, the unions won and got most of it back. We used to send our planes to Tramco in Seattle and to a company in Winnipeg, Candada, they did crappy work.
As for El Salvador, what you all don't realize is that one of the safest airlines out there Grupo TACA runs out of El Salvador. And, they aren't a bunch of fat assed lazy union goons down there, they do the job to the specifications necessary to fly in the US.
Of course we could all have a bunch of lazy assed union monkeys do the job at 3X the cost and at questionable quality here in the US, or, we could raise fares to reflect the increase in gas prices.....
But, no, the american public would fly a balsa wood airplane if the fare was low enough....
I hope everyone who thinks outsourcing is good for America feels safe flying those airlines.
Thank you for your reasoned response, the posters here know zero about airlines, they bitch and whine about the service, but they will troll the web for the absolute lowest price, regarless of the airline.
Then they will bitch about the service, and say "never again", till its time for the next trip.
Only reason Southwest is not losing money is that they had the clout to hedge their fuel purchases, had they not, they would be waaaaay in the red.
The ignorance of the airline reporters is amazing, its all drama and little facts.
Thanks for the insight from an industry insider.
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