I must admit that it's an interesting political strategy by AEI. Flight Crew complain but Maintenance jobs are being ravaged and shipped overseas.
By getting tougher on MEL issues and seeking to bring some regulatory clout to bear, they are putting more pressure on carriers to give maintenance more respect than has been shown.
Apparently this is spot on. Talking to an engineer this morning he claimed that letters had been written to most pilot associations including ECA. The response the engineers got with their "lets work together" on this was zero, he says.
Some of the things said about maintenance and budgets, company pressures and pilots overstepping the mark in a manner thankfully not published here was scary.
The impression I got was that they feel boxed into a corner and calls for assistance hasn't drawn any help so they are reverting to more desperate measures. (my opinion and this is not a quote).
He also made a very apt comment that we should all perhaps think about.
"
Pilots in isolation giving the company commercial assistance is one thing
Engineers in isolation giving the company commercial assistance is one thing
Company cutbacks in isolation in order to assist the company commercially is one thing. All 3 together is down right stupid and unsafe"