Airline Outsourcing Endangering Passengers, National Security, Say Aviation Mechanics,...

Airline Outsourcing Endangering Passengers, National Security, Say Aviation
Mechanics, Industry Experts

Teamsters Union and the Business Travel Coalition Sponsor Summit on Risks of
Aircraft Maintenance Outsourcing

WASHINGTON, Feb. 11 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Teamsters Union and the
Business Travel Coalition co-sponsored a national summit on aircraft
maintenance outsourcing today. The summit drew nearly 200 participants from
the aviation industry, government agencies, labor, business, and Congress from
35 states. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) and Rep. James Oberstar
(D-Minnesota) gave videotaped presentations at the event.

At the summit, Greg Feith, former NTSB investigator, moderated panels in which
invited speakers debated the current state of outsourcing. Feith urged the
speakers to discuss possible solutions to the safety and security issues.
Some of the legislative ideas that were considered include: increased
frequency and depth of FAA inspections to domestic and foreign repair
stations; required criminal background checks for repair station employees;
mandated drug and alcohol screenings; and harmonized standards for U.S.
airlines for all repair stations.

Teamster mechanics are urging Congress to impose a moratorium on any further
outsourcing of airplane repairs and maintenance by the country's airlines
until there are uniform maintenance standards and FAA oversight, saying they
are concerned about the dangers to passenger safety and national security that
the practice poses.

"Teamster aviation mechanics are worried about the non-stop rush to outsource.
They see firsthand the shoddy and dangerous work that comes back from poorly
qualified, badly regulated contractors," said Teamsters General President Jim
Hoffa. "Mechanics tell us that they won't even let their own families fly on
airlines that outsource heavily. That should be a wake-up call to Congress and
the airlines."

Major U.S. domestic carriers dramatically increased outsourcing in recent
years, and now spend nearly two-thirds of their maintenance dollars on
contract repair stations here and abroad, including facilities in operations
in China, El Salvador, Mexico, and the Philippines. Foreign repair stations
are not required to have the same number of FAA-certificated mechanics, or the
same security rules, as airline-owned repair facilities in the U.S.

Advocates of tighter and tougher oversight on airline outsourcing note that
outsourcing was implicated in a 2003 commuter-plane crash in Charlotte, North
Carolina. They also cite the 2001 arrest of an employee at a Singapore repair
station that worked on U.S. planes, who was suspected of having connections to
al Qaeda.

Kevin Mitchell, chairman of the Business Travel Coalition, said that the
summit was the first national forum on the outsourcing controversy.

"This Summit was hugely successful in gathering input from the leading experts
on this critical issue, but it is only a beginning," Mitchell said. "In the
coming weeks, the Teamsters and the BTC will closely examine the draft
legislative reform ideas that were introduced during the Summit, then follow
up with a Customer Hearing in April to decide on final reform recommendations
to Congress."

The aircraft maintenance outsourcing reform principles introduced at the
conference were:

-- A single and highest maintenance standard should be emplaced for airlines'
in-house facilities and domestic-U.S. and foreign repair facilities.

-- FAA oversight of domestic-U.S. and foreign repair facilities should be
increased to a level that is commensurate with the volume and complexity of
current outsourcing practices.

-- The fully-burdened costs of FAA inspections and audits should be borne by
airlines that choose to outsource to overseas repair facilities.

-- Airlines that outsource to overseas repair facilities should hold such
facilities to high environmental standards with respect to disposal of toxic
wastes and other processes associated with aircraft maintenance.

-- Domestic-U.S. and foreign repair facilities should have adequate
safeguards in place regarding personnel backgrounds, aircraft access and parts
inventory to frustrate terrorists who might exploit an opportunity to do harm
to the U.S. or other countries.

To view a web cast of the Summit, go to:

http://www.teamster.org/divisions/Airline/airlinesummit.asp

Founded in 1994, the mission of Business Travel Coalition is to bring
transparency to industry and government policies and practices so that
customers can influence issues of strategic importance to their organizations.

Founded in 1903, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters represents 9,000
aircraft technicians of the 1.4 million hardworking men and women in the
United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. The Teamsters represent 40,000 airline
employees, including more than 9,000 mechanics and related at 11
airlines including Continental and UPS.

SOURCE International Brotherhood of Teamsters

Galen Munroe of International Brotherhood of Teamsters, +1-202-624-6911,
gmunroe@teamster.org; or Kevin Mitchell of BTC, +1-610-341-1850,
mitchell@businesstravelcoalition.com