Saturday, Sep 6, 2008
Oct 7, 2005 | It was only a matter of time, maybe, before somebody linked the fate of JetBlue flight 292 with the growing scourge of airline-maintenance outsourcing. In ever increasing numbers, carriers large and small are consigning work to low-cost off-property contractors. Whether it's a simple part swap or a major D-check overhaul, procedures that once took place in an airline's hangar, under watch of senior mechanics, are now consigned to so-called fixed-based operators (FBOs) both in the United States and abroad, some of them in developing countries where the bulk of personnel needn't meet FAA certification standards. How safe is this practice, and what did it have to do with JetBlue's widely publicized emergency landing two weeks ago?
My own answers are "it depends," and "probably nothing." Others, however, are considerably less restrained: "JetBlue's near-catastrophe was no fluke," exclaims a piece by editor at large Harold Meyerson in the American Prospect, also published as an opinion piece in the Washington Post. "It's what you get when you send maintenance jobs overseas." Meyerson points out that JetBlue's A320s are flown to Canada and, can we stomach it, El Salvador, for repairs and upkeep.
That's a bold indictment. But is it accurate?
The rampant outsourcing of skilled jobs is obviously harmful for the American worker and gravely symptomatic of the ongoing emasculation of the U.S. labor force. The subcontracting of safety-related functions, such as airliner maintenance, is perhaps an especially bad idea. At the same time, there are no known links between the potential hazards of outsourcing and the JetBlue mishap that occurred on Sept. 21.
First things first: Whether or not Meyerson was personally responsible for writing his own lead-in tease, assertions that flight 292 was ever in serious danger are simply wrong. As covered here last Friday, the jammed nose gear assembly was, from a pilot's point of view, a non-event highly unlikely to cause even minor injuries. That it became a live-action network spectacle had nothing to do with the nature of the problem and everything to do with the media's choice to make it one, owing in part to a total misunderstanding of the malfunction. As for that "supremely competent" pilot Meyerson compliments, he and his colleague did little more than execute a normal touchdown after burning off some fuel (more on that later).
As for what caused the plane's tires to skew in the first place, consensus blames a hydraulic failure in a portion of the nosewheel-steering system. Nearly identical failures have happened before on the popular high-tech Airbus A320 -- up to seven prior times. There's the clear temptation to interpret this pathology as a smoking gun.
"Outsourcing was absolutely not a factor in this accident," says a JetBlue pilot, who asks that his identity be withheld. He and other A320 crewmembers I spoke with attribute the recurring breakdowns to a design deficiency -- expensive, inconvenient and all too photogenic, but by no means deadly -- and not the result of negligent maintenance performed in Canada, El Salvador or anywhere else.
That "anywhere else," it's important to note, isn't always on foreign soil. In fact it's usually not. Meyerson is quick to invoke El Salvador, but most airline outsourcing involves shopping to the lowest bidder here at home, not in a scary-sounding third-world country. A non-union technician at an outstation facility in Phoenix, Wichita, or Miami can perform the same work as an in-house mechanic at a carrier's hometown hub in Chicago, for a fraction of the bill.
And yes, that same technician in South or Central America is liable to do it for cheaper still. But there too, it's not about skirting regulation, it's about getting the best price. (Schedule, inventory and other factors play a role too. Check the industry trade magazines and you'll see that carriers all around the world, including some of the biggest names from Europe and Asia, routinely outsource major repairs, overhauls and conversions, as they have for decades.) The quality of outsourced work, whether done domestically or offshore, is by no means necessarily substandard.
JetBlue does send some of its Airbuses to El Salvador, where only a third of the mechanics are certified per U.S. FAA standards. That, on the face of it, seems to be asking for trouble, real or perceived. But it's also true that TACA, the Central American carrier with whom JetBlue contracts, is a highly regarded airline (founded in 1931) with modern maintenance facilities. Those FAA standards can be merely a formality, as experienced, certified technicians coordinate and oversee all operations.
"Our heavy checks, where the airplane is down for weeks at a time," the same JetBlue pilot explains, "are done by specialists in Winnipeg and in San Salvador. We use well-respected companies Air Canada and TACA. These locations have outstanding technical capabilities. This is a complete nonissue at our airline."
Not long ago I was employed by a well-known U.S. freight airline whose jets were flown to Peru for intensive overhauls. When they came back, the aircraft were often more reliable than when our own mechanics had worked on them.
Admittedly that's anecdotal evidence, and I agree there are enough unknowns -- and a few knowns -- to warrant greater scrutiny. Not long ago, mechanics at Alaska Airlines discovered improperly greased jackscrew assemblies in the horizontal stabilizer assemblies of some MD-80 aircraft. Those are the same MD-80 jackscrews singled out by the FAA for special attention after the crash of Alaska Airlines flight 261 five years ago. Allegedly an Alaska subcontractor in Oklahoma was responsible for the misgreased parts. Nonetheless, for now, it's best we restrict the debate to issues of economics rather than sensationalize it as a life-or-death scandal.
Until there's documentation of faulty maintenance, dragging JetBlue 292 onto the stage was at best a stretch. Harold Meyerson and the American Prospect are effectively scaremongering, exploiting people's ignorance about airplanes to underscore a valid if unrelated point -- not unlike the way certain politicians are able to bilk public sympathy by playing the "terrorism" card at every turn. Surely the American Prospect is a savvy enough publication to see through the hyperbole of TV news. To my surprise, it actually took things a step further, using incendiary and manipulative language to give an already overblown story a second life.
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