SR Technics shut down Stansted facility

[Nopax,thanx]

Bad news for the staff at STN :(

News Releases / SR Technics Group (http://www.srtechnics.com/cms/index.asp?TopicID=226)

Component services relocating to ZRH; inevitable really, still a shame.

[GAZIN]

Bad, sad news. Good luck to everyone affected.

[bizdev]

Well SRT finally closed down what remained of the FLS Aerospace facilities - thats one way to beat the competition (buy them and then close them down) - just business I guess :\

[ab33t]

More jobs gone , all the best to those affected .

[simonchowder]

FLS were a joke if SR hadnt took those facilities in the UK over they would have shut anyway years ago FLS never once turned a profit from day one

[AES]

Simonchowder

True unfortunately (and true before it was FLS - who remembers Aviation Traders?).

But one has to ask why. Can it REALLY be that all the people who work there are just a bunch of w@nkers? No, I don't think so! Based on my own experience, try looking at "Management" instead (many of them couldn't manage their way out of a paper bag, WITH a map).

Good luck to the blokes (& girls) there.

AES

[bizdev]

I'm sorry but I do not buy "its the management's fault" for FLS Aerospace's losses. The management at FLS was the one area which did not remain static - the management, from the top down, was replaced on numerous occasions - they can't have all been idiots! And where are they now? Most are still in the industry in good companies doing a good job (in most cases) - many have gone on to be Technical Directors in Airlines or have started their own businesses. Its always easy to blame the management.

FLS never made a profit?

CMG - consistently made shed loads of money
Workshops/Component Repair - made money
Technical Services - made money
Line Maintenanance - was marginally profitable
Base Maintenance - lost shed loads of money - more than the above combined

Base Maintenance was the killer - very high Hangar overheads, combined with UK salaries, less flexible (than other MRO's) working practices - was always going to be a challenge.

I seem to recall that the last year that FLS at STN performed Base Maintenance - the activity lost circa £12m. Whereas the hangar overheads were circa £5m - it was therefore cheaper to halt the activity - this was why base maintenance was stopped and transfered to Dublin.

The only time Base Maintenance ever made money at Stansted was when there was a nose-to-tail line of BA B747s in the late 90's - an Aircraft which the Diamond Hangar was designed for.

As I said - they brought in management changes on many occasions to try and crack this problem - many of the managers had good track records and have gone on to show their talent elsewhere. There was also the radical Formular One project and a shed load of six sigma black belts crawling all over the place. Not even these brain boxes could sort Base Maintenance out!

They can't all have been idiots - can they?

bizdev

[Flightmech]

Does this include the line operation too? I'm ex ATEL/Qualitair/FFV/FLS (mostly line) and have lots of ex muckers there. Management were always useless in the latter days, what with Formula One, Black Belts and "Wisions". Good luck to all the engineers out of work.

[eng123]

Bizdev....Quote..''There was also the radical Formular (sic) One project and a shed load of six sigma black belts crawling all over the place. Not even these brain boxes could sort Base Maintenance out! '' Un-quote.

Well maybe here lies part of the problem. 'Six sigma black belts' and 'brain boxes' really should not be spoken of in the same sentence!

I'm sorry but this whole concept was/is complete b/s. I attended some of this black belt nonsense training in the late 90's in the Diamond Hangar and it was laughable. I was and still am a A+C/B1 certifyer and I found myself on a 4 day course together with mechs/trimmers etc (ie:all depts) where we had to make pie charts and bar charts relating to 'problems' etc. None of this was relevant to what we were doing at work. The only good thing was this was on o/t at time and a half!

I am now in my 40's and still ploughing the same farrow as a certifying engineeer, quite happy, but now realising that management opportunities have probably passed me by. The thing is though...How hard can it be? A certain check will take x amount of hours. Add to this the amount of hours for defect rectification. SRT management must have has this data available from previous checks. You can surely then have a good idea of how much this particular check will cost your company?? Then, you can come up with a price for your customer, considering labour costs. Do we need contractors? How much? Etc etc.. If customers are consistently turning you down for work then you have to look at ways of reducing costs. Why are we charging too much? What overheads can we cut?

The bottom line is that,from my experiece, the SRT management (in several different guises) has been inept and incompetent ever since they first appeared in the UK by buying Louvaux in BOH, going on to destroying Dan Air Engineering at LGW and then FFV at STN.

Having said the above, I am desperately sorry for the people who are going to lose their jobs for the latest management incompetances. I sincerely hope you find some new employment soon.

[N1 Vibes]

When I was at FLS they were the best bunch of people I have ever worked with in my career to date. As for the financials - what can be said, it failed. Only that it was a cement executives pipe-dream hobby to run a pseudo airline engineering department - to FL Shmidth I say best to stick to the Blue Circle production.

Good Luck and All the Best to All at STN!

PS - Nobody has mentioned Dan Air yet...

[bizdev]

"How hard can it be? A certain check will take x amount of hours. Add to this the amount of hours for defect rectification. SRT management must have has this data available from previous checks."

Absolutely - it should be very simple - however.........

You have to assume that each engineer/mechanic/inspector has accurately recorded (electronically or manually) the actual manhours utilised to perform each task. Making sure that access is not duplicated across a number of task cards with the same access, and that all manhours, both routine and non-routine have been captured.

And that the database reflects these captured hours – and there has been ‘smoothing’ to ensure the variation peaks (low manhours v high manhours) are taken out.

Also if you are in a certain area of the aircraft doing a General Visual Inspection, plus a task card that requires a Detailed Visual Inspection of the same area, plus a Structural Inspection card of the same area – then a CPCP inspection is required!!! Logically you would do all the tasks at the same time - but how do you record/allocate the manhours? Someone needs to be very clever as to allocating the manhours for each task – not diluting the hours sold – determining which non-routine hours is allocated to which task card to determine which rechargeable limit/threshold has been exceeded to recharge to the Customer. Then trying to convince the Customer to pay for corrosion found on a CPCP task card which he says should have been found on a GVI card where the defect hours are included in the fixed price!

I could go on – rocket science it isn’t – but neither is it simple – at FLSA there was some great engineers with an excellent reputation for quality – but unfortunately with limited commercial acumen. Many hours were ‘lost’ i.e. not captured for the database or not captured for recharging.

Not sure who’s fault that is though – probably Management :}

bizdev

[aviatordom]

Very sad news:(

All the best to SRT employees at STN, apart from those responsible for taking away the jobs of even more skilled Engineers/Technicians in Britain

[smudgethecat]

Cannot help but remember what a awfull place the diamond hangar was for connies in the early nineties ,we were treated like ****e , some really nasty people worked there, so guys ,for you lot what goes around has at last come around ...enjoy:ok:

[DIE GRINDER]

Smudgethecat I think your statement is bang out of order! And you need to get your facts straight I was one of those connies in the early nineties as well and the nasty people you’re talking about left years ago. All the guys who work there now are a great bunch and some are the connies from the nineties! Including me.:mad:

[chrislow]

It was my last day yesterday as a contractor at SRT stansted. I've registered today to mention that within my 15 weeks the guys in logistics were great. So sad to feel the atmosphere after the closure announcement, but the mood is positive. Good luck to you all, thanks for welcoming me.

:D

Chris Lowin

[Flightmech]

Smudge,

There were some great connies and very bad connies in the Diamond Hangar in the 90's. Some were extremely savvy and were given specialist tasks over the permanant staff. Others just ground corrosion and took out freight bay panels all day long. I wonder which category you fell in?:rolleyes:

[HubNuts]

Whilst The Swiss Management are Busy Assett Stripping the UK Division of SR Technics, they should always remember that they have lost their most valueable Assett......:ugh:


The Employees, and those Skills are not easily replaced.

Good Luck Too All At STN in such a Dire situation.

[de Payen]

simonchowder,

"FLS were a joke if SR hadnt took those facilities in the UK over they would have shut anyway years ago FLS never once turned a profit from day one"

I am not suprised, i'd never met a bigger bunch of idiots who called themvselves 'Aircraft Managers' in my life. They thought that the world revolved around them and half the time they had less experience and gumption than the fitters they employed". However, my experience is based on the then FLS set-up at MAN. Glad i left.

[Dodo56]

Some things don't change, a few bitter individuals blaming the management for all the ills of the world. In my experience they were no better and no worse than any other bunch of management faced with some pretty entrenched working practices. Do change the record lads.

At the end the diamond was simply too expensive to run, with carriers flying off to competitors who pay their mechs peanuts and operate out of rickety sheds. Without a large tied customer (as enjoyed by operators own MROs) the market proved too volatile for an independent with high fixed property and labour costs.

Wishing luck to all the good ones left to find new jobs.

[MEATWAND69]

Lets see all the clingers on and people whos god given right was that there must be o/t get a job with similar wages.let me tell you it wont happen because there are a few people at srt who are going to get a rude and painful wake up call when they actually have to work for a living.:ok:

[Blacksheep]

Cut out the emotion. Why would a customer pay 30%-40% more for a despatch reliability increase from 97.5% to 98%? The bare fact is that UK labour costs for skilled hangar work are too high.

The money now lies in the knowledge side - the CAMO etc. and Line Maintenance that has to be performed on site and cannot be exported. Hangar people are in competition with foreign EASA Part 145 Approved units that operate on costs of US$25/hour and below that charge their customers US$30 -35 per hour. Its no use criticising their capabilities or quality, they meet the EASA and FAA Repair Station requirements and they keep their customers' aircraft operating to the desired reliability levels.

[Dodo56]

Blacksheep what you say is absolutely right, though no doubt many of us will have seen the results of practices at some low cost repair stations that we would not want to see with our own name at the bottom. Many of us may also have been struck by the irony of receiving harsh audit findings in a basically good operation knowing what others seem to get away with. A 0.5% improvement in dispatch reliability may equate to an aircraft that is considerably more likely to land where the pilots wants it - not that anyone cares unless something does go wrong, and by then it's a bit late.

I understand that's the way of the world and in today's cattle class environment a CRS is a CRS and all that matters in choosing where to get it is the cost. FLS's demise may be no more than a symptom of the changing face of the industry (a lesson to management and staff alike) but it's still scary how the beancounters now hold such sway over (and contempt for) the engineering function.

[Blacksheep]

Aye, in the West, beancounters hold sway over and are in contempt of ALL the other functions. That's why I'm trying to ensure that all my grandchildren learn to speak Mandarin. In twenty years time English will no longer be the dominant language of international business. The Chinese are more interested in creating wealth than in counting it.

[JustDoIt]

I worked for ATEL, Qualitair, FFV and then finally FLS. I got out in 97 and haven't looked back. I'm not sure when the worst times were, FFV or FLS but it always amazed me why the place was not more successful, a great bunch of Engineers and most of the time more work than you could shake a stick at, maybe Ryan Air should have bought the place, they could have shared some of the losses that they probably caused.

[pyracantha]

SR falls, Easyjet pull out and Ryanair is left to bully the remaining ground eng's. Looks like Stansted BAA have priced themselves out of the market again. Now they've been left with dirt-cheap budget airlines and no reputeable operators. Prices will rise again, and even the cargo outfits will leave.

[smudgethecat]

Problem is if your charging western european labour rates no matter how good your people or the product is your never going to compete with the middle east and eastern europe sadly , just look for eg what lufties pay there engineers in hungary, great shame because were good at it in the uk

[james solomon]

SR Technics is part of the Swiss international air lines group which in turn Lufthansa owns Swiss. So it could either be Swiss closing them down or Lufty as the Manchester one I think was the first to close

[Mr @ Spotty M]

SR Technics as l understand it has not been part of Swiss for a few years.
Owned by a group of investors from the middle east.

[Dodo56]

Yep, SRT used to the the technical arm of Swissair (SR) and nothing to do with Swiss International (LX). When SR went bust SRT was spun out as a separate company and as you say is now owned by Mubadala.

Yet another lesson what happens when British companies are bought by foreign money. When the cost cutting comes, guess where the cuts happen first.

[fanda78]

Yep Mubadala owns 70% of SRT group...
Anyway I don't believe that Diamond Hangar will stay empty for long time though...

[jethrotull]

Its a myth that wage costs alone are factored in lowering the cost of maint. Productivity in these E.Eu countries are a 3rd that of U.K./Ireland, which ends up eroding all wage differential gains.
Besides the quality also has a implication. Know from personal experience having worked in a couple of these E.Eu outfits, that customers are not impressed with the safety record. This where the call goes from engg to operations and the bean counters find they don't have a say when it comes to flight ops.

I am sure diamond will be back in business by end of next year.

[Dodo56]

Jethrotull, your info on relative productivity comes from.....?

And your experience of beancounters being overridden for the "quality" of a CRS is not what I've seen. In most cases airlines desperate to save money consider a cert is a cert (notwithstanding what many of us might say). This normally never gets looked at unless some very serious quality failings come to light, and even then the attractions of low price are such that the customer will give the vendor the opportunity to rectify said failings. I fact a number of EU operators have placed work in low cost facilities and I know are very happy with what they have received - cost, adherence to standards and on-time delivery.

There's nothing worse for your laurels than resting on them.

As for the diamond, I'd like to think you're right, it's certainly a prime chunk of real estate. But it's also one that carries huge overheads, a lot of office and workshop space that's unlikely to get fully used (but still carries costs) and the need to recruit suitably skilled staff to work it now that most of the FLS bods have been let go.

[jethrotull]

Dodo,

Whence the crew start moaning about faults on relative new aircrafts coming out of these E.Eu MROs, thats when the bean counters start to slide under the table.

Most ops directors have the last say, even over the CEO. Been long in this game and have seen maint coming back to the more costly and eastablished maint cos.

[fanda78]

I hope you are right but at the moment you are not...
I have seen too many contracts being rejected by airline CFOs purely on cost... But I'm with you that Diamond Hangar will not stay empty for long time.

[jethrotull]

Matey,

Today asked one of the bullish bully boy local shettie(most shetties are wimpish bullies) in a E.Eu MRO to install a split pin in a castellated nut.

He accepted defeat and had to be helped by a irish connie. There you go message from the COALFACE, suss it out for yourself.

In the last E.Eu MRO i bumped into a ex-collegue who is a senior exec with a brit Airline, his statement ''Jethro now that i've seen you here, i am convinced on sending my a/c here''. One thing mama taught me was to never be dishonest to the hand that feeds me, I kept my mouth mum, let him ( the northern monkey) learn the hard way, i trust him to learn soon.

[hugel]

I don't think re-siting any operations in ZRH will save any money except in huge tax incentives for the Glattbrug/Kloten area offered by the local authorities. Swiss wages are very high.

hugel