Outsourcing Airline Safety May Prove Costly

By Diane M. Grassi

As airlines in the United States continue to struggle with either recovering from bankruptcy or considering it following September 11, 2001, they increasingly try to invent ways to cut down on costs. American Airlines is considering removing the galleys from the rear of its airplanes which are no longer used to prepare meals, in order to install more passenger seats, while many others increase fees for services other than those performed by passengers on the internet.

And as the U.S. government has been rather mum regarding the continual escalating prices of oil and the required use of petroleum, airlines can no longer avoid the toll of their fuel needs which they claim have doubled in monthly costs from a year ago. But the path that Delta Airlines has just chosen, following suit of many others, is a double blow to the U.S. in terms of laying off American workers in favor of “cheaper” labor in the aviation industry as well as a lack of consideration of security threats to the people of the U.S.

Many say that Delta is merely following the industry trend as 70% of airline maintenance contracts are now done outside of the U.S. United Airlines, Northwest Airlines, US Airways, Alaska Airlines, Jet Blue, Southwest, and America West all outsource the majority of major maintenance of their aircraft. Jet Blue and America West both contract with El Salvador, and Northwest and Continental send their wide-body jets to Hong Kong and Singapore, where terrorists are known to operate.

But there is a price to pay for farming out work outside of our borders, in terms of security and safety compliance, which is an issue with any type of outsourcing. To wit, the flu vaccine debacle in the fall of 2004 with a United Kingdom manufacturing lab in which half of the entire flu vaccine supply for the U.S. was contaminated and not reported by the lab until after some medication had already been distributed here only to be destroyed after the fact.

In 2003 the Transportation Security Agency’s Inspector General's report cited the Federal Aviation Administration for inadequate supervision of outside contractors throughout the aviation industry. Since that time airlines have not concentrated on better oversight of their outside vendors but rather have continued their charge in expanding the outsourcing of U.S. mechanics’ jobs. Many argue that the end result is the difference between an experienced mechanic’s high quality job and an entry-level mechanic doing an acceptable job. But even more disturbing is that mechanics working for outsourcers do not have to be licensed. The only oversight of the mechanics is their supervisors earning between $10 and $20 per hour who are required to hold FAA licenses. But who is holding them accountable?

Short term financial considerations should not be a high priority when the safety of passengers and the livelihoods of Americans are at stake. Delta’s announcement on March 29, 2005 stated that all major aircraft overhauls now based in Atlanta will now be handled by Avborne of Canada and Air Canada Technical Services of Vancouver, Canada, eliminating 2,000 jobs in its technical operations division in Atlanta alone. This comes on the heels of the shut down of a major maintenance hanger in Dallas in January 2005. Delta will not reveal how many jobs were lost there but hopes to eliminate a total of 6,000 to 7,000 jobs over an 18 month period with the Atlanta jobs eliminated by early summer.

Most distressing are security gaps in how maintenance vendors operate given the less stringent background checks and requirements at such outsource facilities as opposed to those done in the U.S. They attract technicians and maintenance workers that airlines on domestic soil would not find acceptable to hire. And the volatility of governments such as China and El Salvador should not sit well with the FAA and Homeland Security officials.

But apparently Delta’s projected savings of $240 million over five years has blinded them from seeing the big picture. This however is not just a criticism of Delta, but rather highlights the actions of another corporation caving in to perceived reduced costs topped off by a slap in the face to the American worker. American Airlines now remains the only domestic carrier which still does the majority of its airplane maintenance in the U.S.

So when will salary concessions, the freezing of employee pay and benefits and continued borrowing be enough? After all, the $15 billion bail-out of the airline industry by the federal government after 9/11 apparently was not enough, even though 2004 airline passenger levels have now surpassed the previously record high levels of passenger travel recorded in the year 2000.The airline industry can no longer stand by their mantra that Americans are no longer traveling by air. In truth the airlines were in trouble before 9/11 due to mismanagement with many of their CEO’s suffering punishments of multi-million dollar severance packages on their way out.

But this issue is much more far reaching than a balance sheet. In the post 9/11-world airline security has been the focus of two newly created federal agencies since 2001, namely the Transportation Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security which it oversees, in addition to new legislation and added technologies and personnel at airports, all to the tune of billions of dollars. However it may be for naught if either terrorism or shoddy maintenance is responsible again for another jet going down. Much like the passivity of our government with respect to protecting our borders we can have all the security in the world for passengers entering aircraft in the U.S., but if there are no checks and balances for crews maintaining aircraft outside of our borders, it may be in vain.

And finally as our economy relies more and more on employing Americans in the services sector, we continually erode whatever jobs we have left by permanently eliminating the incomes of our very own. Outsourcing has permeated every level of business in this country from the factories and the farms to the offices and the laboratories. In this case an airplane mechanic has little chance of finding another job with his or her skills, especially those who have made it their life’s work. And for that reason alone the U.S. government and our leaders must be admonished and held accountable. It is no longer “profitable” for the American corporation or its consumers to cast aside its own workers, especially where not only our livelihoods but our lives are at stake.