The Disturbing Truth About How Airplanes Are Maintained Today
As for the first airplane, the one with the maintenance problem—what was its destination going to be? When you have time on your hands, you begin to wonder about things like this. My own assumption, as yours might have been, was that the aircraft would be towed to a nearby hangar for a stopgap repair and then flown to a central maintenance facility run by the airline somewhere in the U.S. Or maybe there was one right here at the airport. In any case, if it needed a major overhaul, presumably it would be performed by the airline’s staff of trained professionals. If Apple feels it needs a “Genius Bar” at its stores to deal with hardware and software that cost a few hundred dollars, an airline must have something equivalent to safeguard an airplane worth a few hundred million.
About this I would be wrong—as wrong as it is possible to be. Over the past decade, nearly all large U.S. airlines have shifted heavy maintenance work on their airplanes to repair shops thousands of miles away, in developing countries, where the mechanics who take the planes apart (completely) and put them back together (or almost) may not even be able to read or speak English. US Airways and Southwest fly planes to a maintenance facility in El Salvador. Delta sends planes to Mexico. United uses a shop in China. American still does much of its most intensive maintenance in-house in the U.S., but that is likely to change in the aftermath of the company’s merger with US Airways.
The airlines are shipping this maintenance work offshore for the reason you’d expect: to cut labor costs. Mechanics in El Salvador, Mexico, China, and elsewhere earn a fraction of what mechanics in the U.S. do. In part because of this offshoring, the number of maintenance jobs at U.S. carriers has plummeted, from 72,000 in the year 2000 to fewer than 50,000 today. But the issue isn’t just jobs. A century ago, Upton Sinclair wrote his novel The Jungle to call attention to the plight of workers in the slaughterhouses, but what really got people upset was learning how unsafe their meat was. Safety is an issue here, too. The Federal Aviation Administration is supposed to be inspecting all the overseas facilities that do maintenance for airlines—just as it is supposed to inspect those in America. But the F.A.A. no longer has the money or the manpower to do this.
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http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/airplane-maintenance-disturbing-truth
= new reply since forum marked as read
In 2009, a US Airways Boeing 737 jet carrying passengers from Omaha to Phoenix had to make an emergency landing in Denver when a high-pitched whistling sound in the cabin signaled that the seal around the main cabin door had begun to fail. It was later discovered that mechanics at Aeroman’s El Salvador facility had installed a key component of the door backward. In another incident, Aeroman mechanics crossed wires that connect the cockpit gauges and the airplane’s engines, a potentially catastrophic error that, in the words of a 2012 Congressional Research Service report, “could cause a pilot to shut down the wrong engine if engine trouble was suspected.”
Last edited Sun May 29, 2016, 03:18 PM - Edit history (1)
has to have his $14 million bonus each year so there's no other choice but to pay somebody 5 bucks a day to do the maintenance. It's just simple math. Besides, people hardly ever see the maintenance guys so it's not like they're enhancing the corporate image or anything.
(I'm just glad I no longer have to fly.)
Feel free to call their statement ridiculous.
http://www.oig.dot.gov/sites/default/files/Web_File_Foreign_Repair_Station_Final__Statement.pdf
Here it is, in big bird letters.
So tell me again how my claim is "ridiculous", and self-declare victory after twice being just flat wrong.
Right.
Thanks for playing.
with another word starting with "b" 
Here, let's try an example so that we're clear (a made up example)
Every 1000 takeoffs/landings, landing gear must be inspected.
American maintenance standard: Landing gear has to be removed, taken apart, and all parts inspected for wear and corrosion, with wear being measured to ensure compliance with manufacturer's/FAA recommended/mandatedAmer tolerances.
3rd world maintenance standard (for that country's aircraft): Landing gear doesn't have to be removed, but must be visually inspected for wear and corrosion. No actual measurement of observed wear must be taken - use best judgement.
You're showing evidence of a difference in facility/mechanic certification standards rather than a difference in actual maintenance standards to maintain airworthiness. You've claimed, repeatedly, that American aircraft maintained in 3rd world countries are maintained by those countries' standards.
So where does the document you've provided released American carriers from the responsibility to maintain American aircraft by American standards?
We are gonna get it one of these days. The whole airline industry is being mismanaged right into the ground. They are scraping in the money nowdays, charging high fares, extra for baggage and at the same time, laying off screeners, and now we learn of outsourcing the planes for repairs. 
TSA layoffs NYTimes. Start there. The situation IS dire. I know I get upset and I do have to check myself from time to time. Very excitable right now due to election. Sorry. 
But the plane was delayed 5.5 hours after boarding. Finally all deplaned and since it was said delays are not reimbursed for extra fare on another carrier his ticket cost about doubled because they don't have to pay for his, and everyone else's costs. Way to go stupid regulations and the lack of them
...and call Bullshit!
Airport gate areas more closely resemble livestock pens at factory farms.
When I hear the word "lounge," I think of comfortable seating, pleasant ambiance, a relaxing experience. Please tell me which airport's gates even vaguely resemble that. Southwest just took it to an inevitable extreme by making us cattle -- oops, I mean "passengers" -- stand in queues to get a decent seat.
Meanwhile, the airlines cater to their frequent flyers and others who can afford the annual membership fees by operating clubs which are slightly less crowded, noisy and uncomfortable.
I remember touring AA's repair facility and the pride of the workers there!
"What is job one?" "Safety is job one, sir!"
My God, what are we losing?? 
