ALAEA Leadership Change
 

Well hopefully not!!!

Then again, the following Qantas press release looks like a changing of the guard at ALAEA is what Qantas is attempting to engineer.

Quote:

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Qantas today strongly refuted claims made by the Federal Secretary of an aviation engineering union regarding maintenance of the aircraft involved in today’s Jetstar inflight incident and diversion to Guam.

Group Executive Qantas Airlines Operations, Mr Lyell Strambi, said the Australian Licenced Aircraft Engineers Association’s (ALAEA) Steve Purvinas was well known for making inflammatory statements and not letting the facts get in the way of his story.

“The A330-200 aircraft involved in this incident was delivered new by Airbus in 2007,” Mr Strambi said. “It has since undergone a number of routine maintenance checks – most recently by Qantas Engineering in Melbourne in May this year, while its one and only heavy maintenance check was done by Lufthansa Technik in Manila in December 2008.

“We don’t resile from this in any way and Mr Purvinas is deliberately twisting words in suggesting Jetstar has tried to link the issue to Qantas engineers in Australia.”

Mr Strambi said the union also knew that: - where Qantas Engineering does not have the capacity to do work in Australia, it is done by reputable overseas providers. They are certified by CASA and Qantas and their work is overseen by on-site Qantas engineers; and- Qantas recently announced that Qantas Group A330 heavy maintenance would be undertaken in Brisbane from 2010.“Qantas always has high levels of oversight in place, so where maintenance takes place is not relevant,” Mr Strambi said.

“Had Mr Purvinas checked his facts and been able to think outside his narrow industrial agenda, as any good engineer would, he would know that the electrical connector that caused the Jetstar incident was not part of the work undertaken in Manila last year. “There has been no requirement to touch this component since the aircraft was delivered, there is no history of it being an issue with our A330 fleet and there have been no directives from Airbus covering this component.

“And had he checked, he would know that the B747 issue referred to was fully and independently investigated by the ATSB. The issue was known to Boeing, which was developing a modification to address it and the ATSB could not link the issue with any previous heavy maintenance work. “Qantas is committed to the highest operational and safety standards, and the ALAEA is slandering the hard work of its members when it makes baseless and ill-informed claims regarding our engineering operations.”

Issued by Qantas Corporate Communication

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Unfortunately the tatic is all too familar. The innocent and disinterested will be lead to believe that Qantas and ALAEA could be friends, if only it wasn’t for Purvinas and Mates.

If we take the bate, and ALAEA’s Leadership does change at the next elections, - B787 Maintenance will certainly go offshore for sure.

Time to decide if you are a cat or a mouse.

NeedABiggerHammer, what's up mate?

Is your bonus shrinking?

Go peddle your crap to the media because everyone here can see right through you.

lets look at how good the last Exec was before this one,
-had all of Sydney HM shut down line1 1,2 and 3
-work outsourced to all 4 corners of the globe
-training just about completely evaporated
-12% pay rise over 6 yrs(2% per year for you management types)

Ah, Mr biggerhammer, the virgin blue company tool.
Still bitter about your stouch with the previous exec over your lame-less ramps.

Delete all the current QF stone age practices, turn your maintenance into a cost effective,
worlds best practise facility and win back your right to carry our your own maintenance...

Like the way you maintain your 777 fleet perhaps...

Under the long-term contract, SIAEC will provide V Australia with a wide range of FMP services,
including transit and flight maintenance checks, defect rectification, cabin maintenance, spares support,
component repair and overhaul, and logistics management in Brisbane, Sydney and Los Angeles.

Sounds very familiar. Company stooge perhaps?

I have lost count of how many managers have come through our section on roadshows, etc, saying the same thing. Usually they have no experience whatsover on aircraft maint or ever worked in heavy maint. They are just trying to justify cost cutting.

Any engineer that worked in Sydney heavy, especially when we did some customer contracts on Potomac and yank aircraft, will tell you that our aircraft were top notch. They rightfully can boast this through experience, not perception. Our experience, workpractices and LAME numbers played a big part in this. Other maint providers out there, that you boast about, sometimes have 1 LAME running between 3 different aircraft in the same hangar.

So our immaculate safety record when Sydney heavy existed was coincidental, was it? I think not.

NeedABiggerHammer wrote (amongsed other things)....
Um, whats holding us back, Murray? or is it David?

Negotiate with our managers.. I can see a consensus on this, especially with their past track record on keeping promises.

They have been cut. Flexibilities have been voted in for the A380 maintenance crews and in the Brisbane hangar. These flexibilities were apparently essential to keeping costs in line with where QF management were happy with. I doubt we are the worlds most expensive, our dollar floats too much.

The stone age practices are in effect because Qantas is still flying quite a few stone age aircraft. If the aircraft is certified in a regulatory system that requires it to have a transit check done and signed for by a LAME, why is it the LAME's fault that he is required ?

I would seriously doubt any Qantas engineer would say they are impervious to a mistake. Yes we make mistakes, yes the industry knows people make mistakes, yes the regulatory requirements dictate that maintenance tasks that are of a critical flight safety nature have dual certifications to double check for mistakes.

I believe engineers at Qantas know their responsibility in this regard and carry out these particular processes in accordance with the aviation law and are diligent in their application.

Now I would like to highlight a 767 that was maintained in a worlds best practice facility in Singapore. The aircraft had a slat assymatry message after landing and slats were being retracted. The rectification investigation by us overly expensive outdated dinosaur engineers in Sydney found that the torque tubes on a primary flight control were not lockwired and a torque tube had become separated. Faulty slats would not cause the plane to crash, but it does make you wonder about other work that was done on primary flight controls.

Now if the correct process and procedures were followed in Singapore, you would hope the 2nd set of eyes would pick up the maintenance error before it flew. But that is assuming that the maintenance was even documented in the first place. I would even hazard a guess that if the LAME in Singapore who certified for whatever was done on the slats would have picked this maintenance error up himself had he bothered to look..


Qantas were the ones who insisted on a level system which ties the amount of licences to pay. Or did you forget that.

And the other maintenance providors, actually, if you look at the numbers, especially with the Australian dollar the way it has been lately, no they aren't a fraction of the cost. The cost is comparable. The added benefit is that in the eyes of Australian's Qantas is helping keep jobs in Australia which for a lot of people is the main reason they fly Qantas. How much does doing the maintenance in Australia make for Qantas ?

what word is used in the definition of worlds best practice,cost or quality,there is a grand canyon in the difference

Worlds Best Practice = Boxes ticked when the auditor arrives.

I wonder how many suprise audits are carried out at these facilities by the issuers of the approvals (CASA, FAA, EASA etc)...

Mite I also add, Hammer, is it cost effective to have aircraft serviced at "cheaper" facilities only to be grounded on return for corrective maintenance to be carried out?



As stated above, torque tubes not lock wired, others include galleys not bolted down properly, staples in emergency light wiring, additional hours required in heavy maintenance to rectify major corrosion that should have been blended on a previously outsourced check?

Or is that just us bad expensive Aussie engineers "gold plating"? Are you suggesting we turn a blind eye as seems to have been the case with the "cheaper" providers?

third posttttt

Quite a few of our guys have only been working on them for the last 10 years, up until recently that is. But thanks for the tip.:ok:

By the way, they do break at times. And when they do, I am sure our guys will be more than happy to bail you out if needed.

Thats it. I will only fly on Qantas.

Until I read these posts I didnt realise that all the other major world airlines were so unsafe because they are not maintained by Qantas.

:yuk: :yuk:

No one said that, your remark is completely missing the point.

The whole background of Qantas engineering and Australian engineers in general is one of accountability and above all keeping it safe. This is now reinforced with the punitive measures now in place for knowingly breaching company policy and aviation law. When your employment is at stake you make damn sure you have your butt covered from every angle.

When you have a situation when 1 LAME is supervising and certifying for the tasks of 40-50+ people, how can you expect this 1 responsible person to keep his head above water at all times. Despite their best intentions, no doubt they are of a quality of a highest standard (you would hope so) there will be times that things are missed. It's a fact of human existence. Throw in profitability pressures of the MRO concerned, remuneration tied to OTP in the LAME contract, need I finish the sentence? Look at my Singapore example in my previous post in this thread.

As a side issue, yes the only major airline in Australia, that either flies in it or out of it, the only one that has major aircraft maintenance infrastructure is Qantas. When people buy a ticket on Qantas, the chaps in the middle east aren't getting paid, the chaps in Singapore aren't getting paid, the chaps in NZ aren't getting paid, its the workers in Australia getting paid, supporting local businesses and local economies along the way.

If people have a major issue with that fact, the idea that the dollars you are spending are not leaving the country especially in this day and age of China inc, then they really need to start looking at the bigger picture.

thats right needanotherbighammer,then we can all become drones like yourself:}

mmmmmm....Balancing safety?:rolleyes:

Safety comes at a price.

You only get what you pay for.

:ugh:

Gee Mr Wobbles, that really shut every one up.

(I do hope your secretary wrote your submission for you).

it's 21 yrs of age to sign out an aircraft,looks like some one has broken the law again.

Sounds like your out of the loop qf1.Another race to the bottom is on its way.