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Carriers Now Outsource More of Their
Maintenance, But FAA Supervision Is Lax
The Wall Street Journal 03/03/04
author: Scott McCartney
(Copyright (c) 2004, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
Airlines are increasingly paying other companies
to do their maintenance for them. But it has
become painfully clear that the Federal Aviation
Administration doesn't spend enough time
checking up on these outside repair shops.
Last week, the National Transportation Safety
Board cited sloppy maintenance and lax federal
oversight as contributors to last year's fatal
crash of a US Airways commuter flight in
Charlotte, N.C., operated by Air Midwest. It's
not the first time: The safety board has also
said federal maintenance oversight was an issue
in the 2000 Alaska Airlines crash off the coast
of California, which killed 88 people.
Aircraft maintenance matters -- a lot. And while
great safety strides have been made in many
areas of aviation, the recent track record of
maintenance oversight is a troubling one for
travelers.
In an effort to hold down costs, airlines now
spend an average of 30% of their maintenance
dollars at outside vendors.
|
America West |
68.5% |
|
Alaska |
59.9% |
|
Southwest |
54.2% |
|
Continental |
38.4% |
|
USAir |
38.4% |
|
JetBlue |
34.8% |
|
Airtran |
32.9% |
|
Northwest |
31.0% |
|
Delta |
24.6% |
|
Frontier |
22.2% |
|
American |
20.3% |
|
United |
18.1% |
|
ATA |
15.8% |
|
But the FAA has done little to keep tabs
on all this work, according to a report last
summer from the Department of Transportation's
inspector general. Some 97% of inspections done
by FAA officials who oversee specific airlines
were of the carriers' in-house maintenance shops
-- not third-party facilities -- in fiscal year
2002, the report said. While regional inspectors
(as opposed to airline-specific staff) do get
out to see more of the independent shops, they
often have time for only cursory looks, the
report said.
Overall last year, the FAA says 16% of all its
maintenance "surveillance activities" -- anytime
an inspector looked at something -- were done at
outside repair stations.
Lower-cost carriers do the most outsourcing,
spending an average about half of their
maintenance money with third-party vendors.
Higher-cost airlines are more likely to do work
in-house, coming in at only 26%.
As a rule, "outsourced" maintenance isn't
inferior maintenance. Continental Airlines, for
example, hires General Electric Co. to repair
engines. After all, GE built the engines in the
first place.
It's also important to remember that airlines
that rely heavily on outsourced maintenance
aren't necessarily "unsafe" airlines, and aren't
prone to more mechanical breakdowns and
delays. Southwest Airlines, which hasn't had a
fatal crash in 33 years of flying and which
consistently ranks at the top of the industry in
on-time performance and fewest cancellations,
outsources more than half of its maintenance
needs. If Southwest's planes were prone to
breakdowns, the airline couldn't maintain such a
strong operating record.
The FAA points out that, by law, airlines are
responsible for making sure maintenance work is
done right. And the agency says it is making
improvements in maintenance oversight. The FAA
in recent years developed a system to assess
risks and better target inspections at airlines;
now it's trying to do the same thing at contract
repair stations.
"I think in the near future you're going to see
changes made," said Jim Ballough, the FAA's
director of flight standards. "The system is
incredibly safe today, and we continue to look
at improvements."
But the current shortcomings are a serious
concern. If regulators are looking at only part
of the maintenance process, then trouble could
happen. And it has.
The NTSB said the Air Midwest Beech 1900 crashed
as a result of incorrect rigging of the plane's
elevator control system, which points the nose
up or down, and because the aircraft was loaded
with too much weight in the rear. Among
contributing factors, the
safety agency said, was a lack of
oversight by both the airline and the FAA on the
maintenance work done at the outside repair
shop, Raytheon Aerospace LLC in Huntington,
W.Va. Rigged incorrectly, the elevator's
movement was restricted and limited pilots'
ability to push the nose down as the tail-heavy
plane pitched nose-up.
"Carriers that use contractors to perform
required inspection item maintenance tasks and
inspections need to provide substantial and
direct oversight during each work shift," the
NTSB report said.
Air Midwest has since brought its maintenance
work in-house, says Jonathan Ornstein, chairman
of parent company Mesa Air Group Inc. A
spokesman for Raytheon Aerospace, renamed Vertex
Aerospace LLC and then acquired by L-3
Communications, declined comment.
Industry practices on outsourcing vary widely.
According to maintenance-spending figures for
the 12 months ended in September, America West
Airlines, a lower cost carrier, spent the
biggest percentage, 68.5%, of its maintenance
dollars at third-party shops. But ATA Airlines,
another lower-cost carrier, had the lowest
percentage of maintenance outsourcing among the
major airlines at 15.8%.
America West says it has employees who live near
its major maintenance vendors to check work and
conduct required audits. Even with 138 planes,
the airline's fleet isn't large enough to try to
have its own engine overhaul shop. Better to
have GE and Rolls-Royce do the work, said Jeff
McClelland, executive vice president of
operations.
Alaska Airlines ranks second among major
carriers in outsourcing, spending nearly 60% of
its maintenance dollars with outside vendors.
Yet the crash of Alaska Flight 261 in January
2000 traced back to Alaska's own in-house
maintenance, not contract work. In addition to
problems in Alaska's maintenance, NTSB
investigators also found the FAA oversight
lacking.
It's not clear if one way -- in-house or
outsourced -- is systematically better than the
other. But what is clear is that weak oversight
of maintenance is dangerous, for the airlines,
the FAA and passengers. |
