Looks like somebody is trying to save some face.......................
Singapore rejects Qantas claims
Don't drag us into a domestic union squabble,
says SIAEC writes aviation writer Steve Creedy | July 20, 2007
UNION claims of problems with the overseas maintenance of Qantas aircraft has outraged Singaporean officials, who say they have been caught in the crossfire of a Qantas union campaign.
Union officials and executives from the island state joined forces yesterday to condemn and reject claims by Qantas engineers that work done at the Singapore Airlines Engineering Company (SIAEC) was substandard.
The latest allegation concerned emergency lighting wiring crudely stapled together on a plane that had undergone a heavy maintenance check at SIAEC in August-October last year.
But SIAEC said yesterday a thorough review of its maintenance records showed it had carried out no such repairs in the aircraft locations identified by Qantas.
It said stapling electrical wiring was not an approved practice at its facility.
"Really, I want to express the feeling of outrage," SIAEC chief executive William Tan told The Australian yesterday.
"These allegations are not new. We've gone through them before, except for the staples, and every single allegation has been proven false not by us but by (the Civil Aviation Safety Authority).
"And really bringing us down, dragging us into the fight between the Qantas unions and Qantas is really despicable. I am really very upset with the developments."
Mr Tan said he was speaking out in the hope he could get some sense "into the whole ridiculous episode".
He said an original Qantas internal audit report on SIAEC's practices was proven incorrect byCASA.
He said recent publicity about the report had smeared the company's reputation.
It was a global maintenance and repair organisation with more than 40 airlines from throughout the world bringing aircraft to its facility.
It was audited by 27 aviation authorities, including Europe's EASA and the US Federal Aviation Administration, and underwent 107 audits a year.
"What really makes me feel unhappy and sad about the entire situation is that this false accusations really affected the public's confidence in aircraft safety and it is totally irresponsible," he said.
Mr Tan said he was confident SIAEC's standards were so high as to be able to withstand any scrutiny, and it would survive being caught in the crossfire of the Qantas disagreement on outsourcing.
He was critical of Qantas's handling of the staples issue and the fact that management appeared to confirm that SIAEC was to blame.
"The staples were found 10 months after the aircraft left the facility," he said.
"We can go through the records again with CASA, which I think is a very professional body ... and the records will again confirm that no work was undertaken in the areas that were highlighted by that report."
Mr Tan was also unhappy with inferences that there was a cultural difference involved in maintenance issues.
He said recent TV reports highlighted that impression.
"Some of the allegations talk about our engineers and technicians not being able to speak and write English properly," he said. "I think that is outrageous." Mr Tan's criticism was echoed in a letter to Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association federal secretary Steve Purvinas from the SIAEC Engineers and Executives Union.
In the letter, general secretary Chua Swee Lee said the union was outraged "by the frivolous and false false allegations" against its members.
The union said allegations that work in Singapore was inferior was totally baseless and offensive. "These allegations have seriously harmed our reputation and questioned our integrity and professionalism," the letter said.
Mr Purvinas said last night that the union was not saying that Singaporean licensed engineers were inferior to their Australian counterparts but was questioning whether some companies operating outside of Australia had the correct ratio of licensed to unlicensed technicians.
"The Singapore engineers are trained to pretty much the exact same level as the Australian guys and they are just as good as we are," he said.
"What we are questioning here is not the quality of the licensed engineers in Singapore ... (but) the Qantas maintenance system that has allowed this to happen."