That would tend to indicate one of two things:
Either AA has been carrying far too much payroll all these years (doubtful) or they aren't really planning on ramping up next gen 737 and 777/787 maintenance at this base.
I'm starting to wonder if they are looking for a suitor to buy out a trimmed down AA without as many obligations.
Ed, what say you?
Sorry, I haven't been keeping up with this.
Now remember, my view is from the trenches. On numerous occasions, we've learned of AA's plans by reading them in the Tulsa World, though on one particularly notable instance, we read the upcoming proposal on the men's room wall. Management isn't big on sharing their plans with us.
My work has picked up in the last month. My main job is the Honeywell Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning Computer. In a normal month, I'd see 3 or 4 each week, yet through the spring and summer, the numbers were more like 3 or 4 a month. I think there were none in July. Summer is usually busy for us since more people are traveling and the company wants to get flights out on time. There have been summers that bring 12 hour work days Monday through Friday, with another 8 hours on Saturday. That's a lot of hours.
I have no idea what will happen after the RIF (reduction in force) and the early retirements. We're losing 10-12 people out of a crew of about 60 due to those early retirements, and we'll undoubtedly lose a few more. The lowest seniority employee in the shop has about 15 years with AA.
AA is modernizing the fleet by purchasing 737s to replace the MD80s. Some of you probably know more details of that than I do, as my view is strictly limited. I do know that the new aircraft use an updated EGPWS computer that I argued should be maintained in-house, but the final decision is far above my pay grade. Don't think for a minute that I did this in order to save AA money - though that's clearly possible - but instead I was arguing to keep my job. Chances are I'd stay in the shop, but I actually like working ground prox and didn't want to move. One of the union guys said that the union isn't going to bat unless it involves several jobs rather than only one. That's fine, but I think that if they argued to keep even a single job, the multiples would be far easier to keep.
OK, one last point and I stop rambling. I've mentioned this previously, but a refresher doesn't hurt. Modern avionics are moving away from individual boxes toward fully integrated systems. On 727s, there were separate boxes for the autopilot roll, pitch, and yaw channels. They were combined in one box for the DC10s, MD80s and similar aircraft. Now, you may have the autopilot combined with navigation displays driven from the same box. From the maintenance point of view, this requires dedicated and very expensive automated test equipment that costs in the millions. Many airlines just send their equipment back to the manufacturer rather than invest in the test equipment. AA chose to purchase the test equipment (with assistance from the airport trust, I'm told) so we're ideally situated to take on some outside work if our management people can be convinced that it's profitable.
"May you live in interesting times." It's a Chinese proverb that can be interpreted as either a blessing or a curse.
