Smaller maintenance centers join American Airlines' new look.
American Airlines is seeking to simplify management of its maintenance operations to cut costs and improve its chances of winning more outside repair contracts.
The airline is reviewing 318 supervisory jobs at 64 so-called line maintenance bases, which perform tasks ranging from unscheduled repairs to broader aircraft system and operation inspections.
The review does not directly affect the airline's main maintenance bases, located in Tulsa, Fort Worth and Kansas City, Mo.
The effort extends a push that AMR Corp., parent of American, began three years ago to win outside work for the three large maintenance centers, which handle major overhauls.
While virtually every major network carrier has outsourced its aircraft maintenance, American's three big bases have attracted substantial third-party aircraft repair and renovation work. The airline now performs work for about 70 customers at those bases.
During the last two years, the airline's Maintenance & Engineering Center in Tulsa, which employs nearly 8,000 people, has realized more than $500 million in third-party repair work or cost savings from its revamped operations.
Nine large carriers, including UAL Corp.'s United Airlines and Delta Air Lines Inc., spent 64 percent of their maintenance budgets on outside vendors last year, up from 37 percent a decade ago.
"This restructuring is an important step in helping our line maintenance organization become a best-in-class maintenance, overhaul and repair provider in an extremely competitive environment," spokeswoman Sue Gordon said in an interview this week.
American's largest line maintenance facilities are in Dallas-Fort Worth, Los Angeles, San Francisco, St. Louis, New York, Chicago and Miami, Fla.
The line-maintenance management review is part of a program announced a year ago by Fort Worth-based American to gain $95 million in savings and new revenue from the facilities by the end of 2008. No one's been laid off as a result of the restructuring, which began in July, though "it's too soon to tell what the net impact will be," Gordon said.
Workers whose jobs are changed or eliminated have the option to stay with the carrier at another maintenance post or transfer to a different part of American, she said.
The airline said in March that it would spend as much as $100 million on equipment, facility improvements and technology to help win more maintenance contracts. American said it wants to almost double its 2006 revenue from such work to $175 million this year.
Shares of AMR rose 15 cents Friday to close at $24.03 on the New York Stock Exchange.
The Tulsa World Business staff contributed to this story.
