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RANCHO RESORT
MAINTANANCE POSITION

WASHINGTON — Nine major U.S. airlines are farming out aircraft maintenance at twice the rate of four years ago and now hire outside contractors for more than 70 percent of major work, the government says. Contractors overseas handled one-quarter of the outsourced maintenance.

At the same time, U.S. oversight of repair facilities is lagging, the Transportation Department's inspector general found. Investigators said the Federal Aviation Administration has failed to closely track how much maintenance is outsourced and where it is performed.

Although the FAA has taken steps to improve, "the agency still faces challenges in determining where the most critical maintenance occurs and ensuring sufficient oversight," investigators said in the report this past week.

In airlines' effort to lower costs, the report said, they continue to shift heavy-airframe maintenance from in-house mechanics and engineers to hundreds of repair companies in the United States, Canada, Mexico and countries in Central America and Asia.

Nine major airlines examined by the inspector general outsourced 71 percent of their heavy-airframe maintenance — repairs and servicing to an aircraft's body, wings and tail — in 2007, compared with 34 percent in 2003. Also, 27 percent of that work was performed at foreign repair facilities.

The airlines examined in the report were AirTran Airways, Alaska Airlines, America West Airlines, Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines, JetBlue Airways, Northwest Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and United Airlines. American Airlines, the nation's largest domestic carrier, was not included, the inspector general said, because it handles most maintenance in-house.

The FAA relies heavily on the airlines — and the repair facilities themselves — to make sure that outsourced repairs meet the air-safety standards and requirements of the individual airlines.