Outsourced Airline Maintenance: Why This Should Be a Concern for Consumers
Wednesday, August 27th, 2008This past May, Consumer Reports conducted a study which found that the recent spate of airline groundings is occurring despite a high number of carriers outsourcing aircraft maintenance – something that should be disconcerting to fliers everywhere.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is responsible for airline safety in the U.S. and is the governmental agency which inspects planes and regulates American carriers. When maintenance work for a carrier is done by an outside company (as opposed to the company’s own facilities), it becomes much more difficult for the FAA to regulate airplane maintenance. As a result, licensed mechanics may not be doing the actual maintenance work (even though one has to sign the work off). Even more worrisome is the work may not be thoroughly checked – anything from faulty wiring to obscure technical problems may be present despite an approved “check.”
Aside from bringing more maintenance in-house, industry experts suggest that airlines should utilize new, beneficial maintenance technology (such as an arc fault breaker) and require more thorough, scheduled maintenance checks to avoid grounding. Further more, the FAA is being pressured to increase certification requirements for licensed mechanics.