Editor’s Notebook: From the Trenches

Joy Finnegan, Editor [jfinnegan@accessintel.com]

When we gathered the information for our salary survey, we received many eloquent comments in the section regarding the issues affecting the maintenance industry. One writer said, "There are so many varied issues affecting the aviation maintenance technician, no coordinated effort will ever address them all." We talked about some of those issues in the September cover story concerning the results of the survey, but I wanted to share some more of the comments that you all wrote about the many challenges you are facing in this business. These comments were repeated by many, but didn’t necessarily make it to the top ten.

"My favorite thing is to get my PMI, his assistant and the local FSDO guy all together and pick a regulation and ask them to explain it to me. More than likely I’ll get three different explanations"

In keeping with my ednote from last month when I wrote about how to create a more positive environment in which to work, one writer said, "Company attitudes that keep a maintenance organization from being innovative and proactive. Not allowing people to do what they do best. Not learning what individuals do best and worst. The best way to analogize it would be to say you cant expect to throw grass seed in the dirt and expect to grow strong and healthy without some specific care and nurturing. You might get lucky, but is that what we want when it comes to aircraft maintenance? I don’t!"

Several writers said paperwork has become nightmarish. "Owners not understanding the change of the environment that mechanics work in. I am speaking of the legal, OSHA, additional paperwork issues that are required now versus 10 years ago." Another said, "In a word, paperwork. When I first started in this business we only dealt with the logbook and the maintenance manual. Now we are required to do monthly audits. We have to track our tooling, training and qualifications, technical publications, ground equipment, time-controlled parts. Beyond that, we use the computer to order parts and enter log items. I spend more time in the office doing paperwork than working on an aircraft."

Another challenge that seems to be incredibly difficult to deal with is the disparity between FSDOs. "Differing interpretations from FSDO to FSDO. When a client takes his work somewhere else because that region is not held to the same accountability standard as we are and he doesn’t understand why we have to charge more for work that doesn’t have to be done elsewhere," said one responder. Another agreed, "There needs to be uniformity in the way that the FAA interprets their regulations. My favorite thing is to get my PMI, his assistant and the local FSDO guy all together and pick a regulation and ask them to explain it to me. More than likely I’ll get three different explanations and it takes a couple hours to get them to settle down. Yeah, I know, get a life, right?" Well at least he’s still got his sense of humor!

The switch to fixed-price contracts was especially concerning to some, including this writer, "In the 3rd party maintenance sector, it seems that maintenance contracts changed from time and material, to fixed price. Under a time and material contract, the party performing the maintenance is motivated to thoroughly inspect the aircraft. This is because they know the more that is written up, the more money they can make. An onsite rep for the aircraft operator reviews and approves items to be worked. Under this system the aircraft gets properly inspected, and all potential problems are identified. Under a fixed-price contract, the party performing the maintenance makes a larger profit if less work is done. Maintenance personnel are advised to focus on the exact area the task card defines. Inspection is told, ‘Don’t look anywhere outside the defined zone of the task card.’ Statements such as ‘remember we’re not trying to deliver a new a/c,’ and ‘Is there a way to make this go away’ become a common part of the repair station language. The role of the onsite rep in a fixed-price contract is to make the repair station fix everything. The problem is, unless that one rep can go out and inspect the entire aircraft, he will never see many of the issues that just went away. In a nutshell, it is a conflict of interest for a repair station to benefit from less work being done." Thanks again to all of you who took the time to write these comments. It really brings to light the many challenges you face everyday.