George’s Point of View
Maintenance abroad, no matter how good the mechanics are; monitoring; who does it; how good is it?
- If something terrible should happen, our hands are tied in the courts.
- If the person at fault is in, subject to, and adjudicated in a foreign country, the laws may be antiquated, inadequate, indefensible or unenforceable.
- In the U.S., suing a company from a foreign country does not guarantee that a court here will hear the case. The injured or the victim families suffer unrequited consequences.
Let’s keep our U.S. planes serviced right here in the U.S.
Scene: Back to the future
Doc Brown
No wonder this circuit failed.
It says “Made in China”.
Marty McFly
What do you mean, Doc?
All the best stuff is made in Japan.
Doc Brown
Unbelievable.
What is the quality of imported products? It all depends on the decade. The appetite, desire and need for imported spices impelled the development of trade, forced Columbus to hop in the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria and go looking for a trade route, and we all know that he found, instead, the American continent.
Spices, fruits and veggies out of season, products are all imported.
So should airlines based in the US be exporting their maintenance outside of the country? Aside from ridiculous logistics, I think the problem here is regulation. How can standards of regulation be upgraded to optimum levels if our maintenance is shipped out of the country? Aside from that, it is impractical and somewhat silly. Think about it–when our bathroom faucet springs a leak, do we send the house to China? Do we uproot the bathroom and send it to China? Do we even send the part? No, we have maintenance–the plumber, ubiquitous panty line notwithstanding–comes IN and with his expensive clock ticking away, replaces the part and saves the day.
That’s not to say that Mohammed must always come to the mountain. But in the wake of proliferating engine shutdowns, defective parts, structural design issues and hull failure, maybe we need to rethink sending our maintenance out of the country. Maybe it is cheaper, but is it better?
Let’s look at the big picture, where relying on non-US standards takes us: Look at the fiasco of Chinese drywall–where families across the country are suffering with degrading, stinking, sulphur infested drywall as their home values and quality of life plummets. Look at the ongoing stream toy recalls, as warnings of children’s toys covered by lead paint, or lead components are broadcast daily. Look at the massive pet food recall of 2007, where 17,000 complaints and over 2000 pet deaths were related to melamine in dog food with chinese rice components containing melamine.
Until every outside resource is going to have the quality rating of Quantas, do we really want to export our maintenance? Not only does it not make sense…well face it, it just does not make sense. Maintenance and the maintainers should reside under the umbrella–and the sharp teeth–of our legal system. Under our own US regulatory system, we need to hone the edge of our own country’s in-house maintenance, exercise the craft that once made “Made in the USA” the top of the line INTERNATIONAL standard, and frankly, let our corporate dollars feed—not bleed—our own job-hungry nation.
