VIRGIN AUSTRALIA MAINTENANCE
 

I've just been told that a Virgin Australia A330 was ferried to Manila yesterday for maintenance. Why aren't there any critical voices raised about this? Qantas does it and everyone's ire is at fever pitch. It's competitor does so, and there's a deafening silence. Surely there is or are a facility or facilities in Australia that could satisfactorily acquit the work without the need to ferry the aircraft between Australia and Manila - an expensive exercise alone? WTF? :(

most of virgin maintenance is done offshore. majority is done in NZ. its not majority owned by australia so it can do what it likes in a way. less restriction on it

Virgin maintains its 73 fleet in NZ. When an aircraft comes back from there we don't see the same quality (or lack of) as we do with aircraft that return from Asia.


The ALAEA is not happy with Virgin maintaining anything in Asia. The difference between them and Qantas is this. Qantas had it all in Australia, HM facilities, staff, workshops, experience and apprentices. Virgin started with nothing.


Virgin are increasing staff and building to a point where in a few years time they will possibly be able to do HM here. You cannot snap your fingers and just do this when you started with nothing. On the other hand Qantas are dismantling everything even when it is done here cheaper. They are moving one way, Virgin are heading the other.

Virgin will never do heavy maintenance here ever. The 'critical mass' doesn't exist, it never will without foresight and without having the capability in place to do multiple lines of heavy maintenance at once. Qantas is only doing it because they're bound by law to do it. Jetstar send 90% of its heavy maintenance offshore. Virgin send 100% of its heavy maintenance offshore.

Foresight is what LTP and ST Aero and SASCO and HAECO show. Build it and they will come. Australia in general has a different mentality, wait for them to come then we will build it only if we absolutely have to.

Just a look at the state of our airports, terminals, transport infrastructure, essential services etc will make that plainly obvious.

ALAEA Fed Sec, last I checked, the first A in ALAEA stood for 'Australian'. You're not the NZLAEA. Aren't you supposed to be lobbying to keep licensed engineering jobs in Australia, like the name suggests? I hardly think the ALAEA would keep silent if QF decided to ship their 737s to NZ for heavy maintenance. Don't forget that VA sending their 737s to NZ for maintenance was essentially the nail in the coffin of JHAS heavy maintenance at Tullamarine, where I'm sure some ALAEA members used to have jobs.

And what about what the Ken originally said? He wasn't referring to a 73 going to NZ for heavy, he mentioned an A330 going to Manila (ie. Asia) for maintenance. Has the ALAEA decried this "blatant disregard for Australian travellers' safety" in the same way as you would if it were a QF A330? The deathly silence would suggest otherwise.

As 600ft-lb said: VA will never do HM in Australia. How long is the ALAEA going to give VA a free ride before you finally hold them to account for not taking responsibility for the maintenance on their own aircraft? The whole thing smacks of double standards by the ALAEA: one standard for VA/JQ, a different (and ultimately inefficient and unattainable) standard for QF.

Virgin HM was going to NZ before JHAS even existed. No nails there buddy.

Heavy Maint.
 

Hi 600,
You mentioned, "The 'critical mass' doesn't exist" , and
"without having the capability in place to do multiple lines of heavy maintenance at once",
I was wondering, what no. Of aircraft do you believe would be required of a particular type to justify Heavy Maint. Here.
We had about 80 737's and more often than not 2-3 lines in H/M at one
Time, "multiple lines" etc, plus wide body capability... Didn't help.
Also, we have a family friend that works for Goodrich, said to me you need minimum 25-30 aircraft to justify having your own in house overhaul shop for landing gears, then above that number, cost more to outsource, but that's what happened anyways.. I personally think ultimately the reasons for offshoring are purely employee, OH&s, workplace relations reasons, less so money.
Cheers

Currently ANZES handles the following for Virgin.
73G/73H - AKL/CHC
77W - AKL
E190 - CHC

I wouldn't be suprized if the ATR's came to NSN when there next heavy maintenance is due.

As the NZ ownership of VA keeps growing, and they taking a seat on the VA board. I'd say it would not be long till we see VA ordering A320s, NZ has a huge interest in the IAE 2500s

As others have pointed out, I think the main difference is that Virgin and others just starting up do not have these facilities yet, where Qantas who have been around forever already have everything they could possibly need IN Australia. :ok:

I am surprised Qantas would be allowed to send any heavy maintenance off shore, back in the 1960s Ansett planned to send their Carvairs to Hong Kong for due heavy maintenance and it was blocked by the then Australian Government as it was against the National Interest.

The then Government wanted to keep the work here in Australia, partly to keep all the already established Ansett facilities open and employing Aussies, but also they said to keep the facilities here in case of any International unrest or wars, and this was before all of the terrorism etc, so you would think I would apply even more today to Qantas being basically the only facilities left here.

"ALAEA Fed Sec, last I checked, the first A in ALAEA stood for 'Australian'. You're not the NZLAEA. Aren't you supposed to be lobbying to keep licensed engineering jobs in Australia, like the name suggests? I hardly think the ALAEA would keep silent if QF decided to ship their 737s to NZ for heavy maintenance. "


What a load of rubbish. By stating that we haven't seen the same quality issues come out of NZ doesn't mean I am lobbying to keep work there. If I said that their quality was not up to scratch that would just be an outright lie. When I post here and talk publically I cannot do so without reason and supporting evidence.


Whilst we haven't seen a continual flow of errors and mistakes coming out of NZ, the Asian facilities are continuing to send crap work back here. We have countless examples errors, failed audits and late aircraft from the facilities in Hkg, SIn and Manila.


BTW Qantas did send 737's to NZ and the ALAEA did keep silent because we had no evidence to nail them on. This is not a case that we only critisise Qantas. We got stuck into Virgin over towing practices. Suggest you get back to the Qantas crisis centre 000.

For the hard of hearing, or for those who don't want to hear:

FACT. Qantas is pilloried for having done some of its maintenance off-shore.

FACT. Virgin Australia, irrespective of ownership, holds itself to the Australian nation that it's an Australian carrier.

FACT. Virgin Australia has most of its maintenance performed off-shore.

FACT. There are facilities and a skilled workforce in Australia that could acquit this maintenance.

Question 1. Why is there such silence in respect of Virgin Australia's off-shore policies?

Question 2. Why is Qantas so trenchantly criticized when its competitor is not?

Question 3. Is Virgin's off-shore maintenance of such a standard that it's more acceptable to Australian unions and the travelling public?

Question 4. What have the unions done, if anything, to bring Virgin's maintenance on-shore!

With Virgin now being 26% New Zealand owned, wouldn't it now be no problem sending there planes back to NZ

Didnt answer either of 000's questions fed sec!

ATRs HM is done in Singapore - paya lebar.
A330 Lufthansa technik Philippines
B77W SIAEC
E190 - some company in Portugal
B737 - ANZES

Didn't realize Virgin's aircraft were ever in NZ in the first place - most are on the VH register. The fact that NZ own 26% of VA is meaningless for the point of this discussion.

And many say they won't fly on Qantas ' as their maintenance is done overseas'! Give me a break! :ugh::ugh::ugh:

Ken Borough, You should check your facts. I remember watching the senate inquiry a while back when they interviewed the Virgin Chief Ops officer, he stated that Virgin burns 70% plus of its maintenance mah hours on shore. They carry out Line Maintenance in most Australian ports. BNE and MEL carry out overnight hangar maintenance.

Both the 77W and E190 have become a familiar site at ANZES over the past 6months

A couple years back when Virgin was smaller, there 738s where delivered to CHC. The ferried to MEL/SYD when they where ready to enter active service.

Where do you suggest they have their heavy maintenance done, Qantas? :confused:

I doubt if Qantas would do it for them, just as neither Qantas or Ansett would do it for Compass. :(

He asked 3 questions not two. I was answering the first one.

I never originally tackled the individual thrust of his argument about one plane going to Manila. We don't attack Qantas for each aircraft they send overseas either.

It's funny that a few people appear unhappy and raise a point about us never attacking Virgin in the press (which is not true anyway). The same people never want to know why we aren't attacking Jetstar for sending aircraft overseas.

The types compass flew were hardly compatible with the heavy maintenance facilities and authorisation holders abilities so that's a bad example.

However, Qantas management have gone into bunker mode in the last decade, they are not interested in being entrepreneurs of the aviation world. They handed back all of their line maintenance customer contracts nation wide to try and strongarm their workforce into submission. Of course they now realise it was a mistake because the perpetrators of that crime all got sacked shortly after. I digress, Qantas could've and did have the facilities and manpower available to do all the work available in Australia with a world comparable scale.

It's not a hard stretch of the imagination to see that if Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin put their comparable aircraft types, the 738's, A320's and the a330's into the same facility the scale would be there - it would be a cost saving all round. The whole wages argument is moot, heavy maintenance exists in high cost European countries. While I don't disagree that Qantas's 3 previous heavy maintenance bases wasn't ideal for a cost structure, having duplication all the various non productive staff, managers, planners, HR, admin etc there is no reason why if the 3 airlines flying in this country got their act together they couldn't put together a world leading MRO.

But once again, that would take foresight.

I am definitely NOT one of those people, however you have my curiosity now, why is it okay for Jetstar when they are owned by Qantas? :confused:

Sorry you think that, there was NOTHING bad about Compass, except for the disgusting and unAustralian way we were treated, mainly by Ansett. :mad:

Qantas did rent us their hangar sometimes for checks and engine changes etc.

600ft-lb,
One of the more logical and insightful posts I've seen in a while...well done.

Both VPH and VPF were seen in SIN at SIAEC in November.

Quote : Where do you suggest they have their heavy maintenance done, Qantas?

If Virgin were fair dinkum about supporting Australia they could have done so at JHAS. They signed an EMBRAER deal and then chose to renig on the deal and send them to Portugal. Why ? They quoted poor turn times yet when adding the time and cost of ferry flights they take longer and cost more. They forgot that they could not supply parts on time with nearly all the checks started without all the pre load parts being sent. But hey it is never the customers fault.

Then they took away the B737 checks and landing gear program even though they were mostly completed on time. Send them to ANZES was their choice.

How long before Virgin take the A330 A Checks away from JHAS and put the final nail in the coffin?

So as many have stated in this thread where is the noise for taking the maintenance to Asia ? :ugh: :ugh: :ugh:

Apparently when either the carport at the MJB is built or when they have enough B1 LAMEs in MEL to do the work at BAE (supposedly they can fit the nose in the hanger - I think Pinocchio's nose got longer with that idea)

Okay, I thought Qantas would be the only ones left in Australia that could do all this heavy maintenance, sorry. :confused:

Okay, I no nothing of this JHAS, so I went searching.

Surprised to find, IF it is true?

It says the Jetstar work is now being done in-house, but from what is posted here that is NOT true is it? :confused:

Jetstar maintenance
 

Since the end of last year (2013) jetstar have started doing a-checks in H141 in MEL, this is the hangar they originally got just for the 787.

J* owned, manned by KORR contractors, a lot who are ex JHAS.

airsupport,Qantas where sending 74's as far away as Ireland in the 80's for HM as the bean counters had shut down the apprenticeship training school as I recall.
I'm sure others that frequent these pages have far greater knowledge on this than I.
Sadly QF is an inverted pyramid,way too many people pushing paper around and it's always the sharp end that gets it in the neck.

Jetstar do a fraction, less then 25% of their heavy maintenance in Newcastle. The rest is done in Singapore.

They do however do their heavier overnight/A checks in their newly acquired once busy, now empty ex Qantas hangar.

Looking at the bigger picture, it was probably cheaper to shut down the Qantas MEL maintenance base then it was to build a new hangar for Jetstar.

Okay, thank you all for your responses with info. :ok:

Things are way more complicated now than they ever were during my 40 years in the Industry, I have never even heard of some of those places. :uhoh:

I think I will just keep out of it and enjoy my retirement, but good luck to all of you that are still in the Industry. :ok:

In which Australian cities does Virgin Australia have line maintenance bases at? Are they company owned?

Line in most ports they fly including all capitals.

Thanks for the reply.

Do they have their own maintenance hangars around the country? as the only one I am aware of is Brisbane and Melbourne.

Thanks

BNE/MEL and VARA has one in PER

Thanks for the information.

The reason I am asking is that I read an article from a few years back mentioning Virgin Australia wanting to build a base in Sydney.

There was going to be a widebody hanger built in Sydney but from memory the place they were going to build it got used for something else.

I can't remember exactly where it was but thought it was on the opposite side of 07/25 and near where the new apron has been built and the long term car park is.

Not sure where that project is at at the moment.

They won't need a wide body hanger once the wide body aircraft are sold off!