Aviation Maintenance: Back Shop: Change Agent

Tony Charaf, Senior Vice President, Delta Techops

AM: Recently Delta TechOps won the Best Total Solutions Provider award from OneAero. How is TechOps providing the best total solutions to their customers?

Tony Charaf: We are honored to receive this award, as being recognized by our peers is one of the greatest compliments we can receive. The award reflects our commitment to be an industry leader in service, innovation and technology and to offer those same qualities to our customer airlines. Safety comes first — always. We have implemented measures and continuous training initiatives. For example, we pioneered in training and implementing lean and Six Sigma as an airline MRO. Delta TechOps’ Component Maintenance division achieved ISO 9001 Certification. Again, Delta TechOps is also one of few airline MRO service providers to have achieved this certification. These two examples reflect our culture of a commitment to safety. It’s essential in our industry. Secondly, we have an incredible working relationship with our employees. We have an open-door policy that has resulted in most of the good ideas that get implemented at Delta TechOps. After all, our frontline workers should know! We are all a team and only as a team, we can succeed providing the best service and delivering top quality work to our customers within the promised turn-times. As said before, I think our customers, and other industry peers for that matter, recognize this commitment to safety and performance, and getting a sense of our culture. And no one knows better than we do what it takes to fly.

AM: What do you see as the biggest challenges facing all large MRO organizations in the next five years?

TC: Recognizing that the majority of our MRO customers are aircraft operators, the biggest challenge will be finding ways to offset rising fuel expenses. As an airline MRO we understand these challenges and will seek to reduce costs by utilizing our flexible non-union workforce, leveraging our supply chain to reduce material expenses and continually developing process improvements that bring defined value to our customers.

AM: How has Delta been handling the recent scrutiny of the FAA about AD compliance that has affected other airlines so dramatically?

TC: We’re working very hard to ensure we are following the ADs to the letter. There is no room for interpretation and the instructions must be followed exactly. We look to be in good shape for the most part but we take Airworthiness Directives very seriously and we are using the opportunity to remind our folks that if something isn’t clear, they should stop what they’re doing and ask for clarification. Making assumptions isn’t an option. But making TechOps a safe place to stop the work and ask those questions is just as important.

AM: Have you had to ground any planes because of the FAA scrutiny?

TC: We worked with the FAA and voluntarily reworked some of the work performed on an AD that dealt with our MD-88 fleet. It served as a good reminder for us that the instructions must be followed exactly.

AM: What is your relationship with the FAA’s certificate management office like?

TC: It’s a good one. We are very candid with them and they are very candid with us. I believe we need to work in partnership — but that doesn’t mean we need to be friends. We have very different jobs, certainly, but we all have the same goal and that is keeping Delta’s aircraft in top safety condition. We are not going to wait on the FAA to tell is if we need to park an airplane for a safety issue. We will — and already — do that on our own. But the relationship between airlines and the FAA is much better today than it was in the 1960s and 1970s. Back then we behaved like cops and robbers with a "Gotcha!" mentality. Over the last several years, that relationship has changed to one in which we share information and learn from each other. The mentality is that the more we can share, through programs like ASAP, the better our chances of preventing an accident. It’s a proactive approach and one that has created the safest period in aviation history. It is critical that this proactive relationship be maintained. It’s working and the data proves it.

AM: How would you envision a merger with Northwest Airlines impacting Delta TechOps?

TC: I think the impact will be positive. We have a very good thing going here at Delta TechOps with our MRO business and when the time comes, we’ll be happy to welcome the Northwest maintenance team to the fold. For example, because of the size of the hubs in Minneapolis and Detroit, they provide a very necessary line maintenance asset at those facilities. Line maintenance is core to what we do at Delta TechOps so it will be a good fit.