Originally Posted by
LeadSled
Folks,
I am a little surprised that closure of B717 heavy maintenance at Canberra, and its move to Singapore seems to have gone unnoticed.
Apparently about 40 redundancies of skilled/licensed labor reported.
As always, the terrible labor productivity, brought about by ratbag CASA regulation, working in lockstep with equally ratbag award demarcation, is a major culprit.
And, if you think Singapore is "cheap labor", you obviously don't know much about Singapore.
The "Australian Way" triumphs again.
Tootle pip!!
Penny wise, pound stupid.
Control of engineering work process used to be considered strategic.
To support the assertion of 'uneconomic' Qantas progressively shrunk its heavy maintenance in Australia reducing the fleet to arrive at a non-sustainable cost base. That the infrastructure was largely a result of the taxpayer benevolence, wasn't noticed. That Qantas 'competitively tendered' with John Holland whilst convicted felon former CFO Gregg sat incredibly in both camps seemed not to worry anybody.
Once the facility was closed and all heavy maintenance transferred offshore, a strange thing happened.
The overseas facilities reported 'increased workload' and less availability; it became commonplace for 'customer aircraft' like those of the airline Qantas, to slip down the priority list.
With newly minted MBA running around minimising cost, at least in the short term, this remains the standard play book.
Given the relative size of the 717 fleet and the declining numbers in operation worldwide, maintenance may become harder to find..