EasyJet - Grounded Aircraft Fleet?

[bealine]

Driving to work this morning at 4.15 am, I caught the LBC discussing EasyJet and the news that its 737's were grounded due to the Third Party Engineering Company failing to keep accurate records of the date parts were replaced.

Is there any truth in the rumour, or were the aircraft allowed to fly once a quick visual had been made to establish replacement parts were "in date"???

[StarAllianceGold]

The only source Google News finds for this story is the Mirror.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/tm_objectid=15387970&method=full&siteid=50143&headline=easyjet-planes-flying-with-out-of-date-parts-name_page.html

"TENS of thousands of easyJet passengers have been flying on planes with components past their sell-by date.

Failure to keep a computer log of maintenance records meant the no-frills firm had no idea if parts were due for replacement on Boeing 737s.

A team of engineers has been brought in to deal with the problem. The task will take until at least August - the height of the holiday season.

Apart from the planes affected, none of the easyJet fleet has been grounded while renewal records are updated.
..."

Not sure whether that means any planes have actually been grounded or not.

[Mr @ Spotty M]

SASKATOON9999

The Major share holder in EasyTech is SR Technics, was FLS before buy out.
If you put two and two together it might add up to FLS supply the spares, which is now also SR Technics.

[jettesen]

Obviously its a load of bullsh**t.

1 - Its in the Mirror newspaper

2 - Since when did easyJet have 767 - 300's??

Don't believe everything in the papers

[As I See It]

Not so much bull IMHO, Merlin is as poor as the people putting in the data, this used to happen all the time with another contracted airlines fleet (no specifics, bad press and all that). Many a request for part and serial number check of items fitted because tech records simply didn't know what was fitted, following that there were a great number of out of phase part changes due to badly tracked life items.
I am sorry to say, but it is another good reason why FLS had to go and I can only hope that SRT can change the slack working practices and bring them under control and also to make the managers responsible for badly undermanned departments, as short staff numbers is a prime reason for errors. The errors usually occur when tech records have to have their end of month reports in and everyone rushes round to make sure everything is on the system, a rushed botch job!
As for the Mirror report and the stated engineers having to look through the paperwork, I doubt it, more tech records personnel I'll bet, and contractors brought in to do the everyday tech records work?


Remember; It's only As I See It:ok:

[Zulu Yankee]

Wahey, I used to work in this EXACT JOB so I can vouch on this one.

The records are pretty dodgily kept it must be said, FLS easyTech (as they were called then) recruited temps (like myself), some of whom had next to no qualifications or experience in the engineering field, to enter spares data and log faults of an engineering nature. Faults and mistakes often occurred due to the temps having to read dodgy pilots hand writing without any rough ideas as to what the problem might be without prior knowledge.

I stopped working there around 2 years ago, and I believe the operation is now centred at Stanstead, however, I can count several times that planes have been delayed due to the mistake of temps in the role, a couple of times I was even responsible :oh: .

Anyways, in summary, I can tell you, this story comes as no great surprise and is entirely feasible.

[FlapsOne]

Well with currently 100% of flights arriving within 60 mins and 96% arriving within 15 minutes and no notified cancellations in the last 48 hours it appears that this story has a strong smell of BS about it!!!!

Grounding the 737 fleet would take so many aircraft off the line I think someone would notice!

[HZ123]

That could explain why ATC Lasham are recieving one a week for the last few and have a further 11 coming. On another point when will Easy phase out these excellent a/c.

[admiral ackbar]

Saw a nice orange plane at CDG this morning so...

[EasyBaby]

apparently they should be gone by next summer ill be glad to see the back of some of the blessed little creatures!

EB;)

[Capt.KAOS]

Survived two EZ 737 flights yesterday on AMS-LTN-AMS, both 10 mins early...

[Oshkosh George]

Easy HAVE been phasing out 733s,and these are probably the ones you're seeing at Lasham,as they are returned to their lessors.

[bricklayer]

reason easy 737-3 at atc is due to srt uk made all maintenance staff redundant april 2004. they then sub let work out to srt ireland. easy jet and srt uk unhappy with srt irelands delivery of product and decision made to pull all work out of ireland. srt uk now have to sub let this work along with the end of lease checks to another provider. atc being just one of these.:confused:

[morroccomole]

Zulu Yankee: cast your mind back, were you not employed in the first place to improve upon the service that FLS at STN were giving? i.e. they were so slow in processing the tech logs that it was decided to bring it in house to speed it up and clear the back log? It was perceived as a 6 - 9 month job some 3 years ago and has only just recently been put back to STN, some backlog. Also, were you not placed in an office with qualified engineers on hand so that if you had any doubt about an entry you could ASK?

Anyhow, this clouds the story, it's not what its about. This story refers to MERLIN component life history being out of date / inaccurate, nothing to do with the entries you were making based on PIREPS. These 2 sides of MERLIN do not talk to each other.

A certain amount of truth in the story, records are behind, but no aircraft grounded as far as I know. Seems th esource is either a disgruntled ex employee or somebody from a company acting on behalf of the lease co's?

[Cessna 210 Heavy]

It would seem that the Mirror blew this issue out of all proportion. The system that SRT uses to administer all the units on the aircraft, MERLIN, is out of date and there are some over-runs but nothing anywhere near enough to ground the fleet. Work is underway to correct this, and the CAA are happy. This system is currently being cleaned and ready to transfer the data to the new system, which is arriving in weeks.

As for aircraft going to ATC Lasham easyJet aircraft are going to several maintenance organisations throughout Europe. This is to test the water and see how these companies can get on with providing a service to SR Technics.

This was a SR Technics decision, not an easyJet decision. If easyJet had their way the Aircraft would not have gone anywhere near Southend.