FAA Honors AirTran's Safety/Training/Maintenance with Awards

[haze]

I can rehash too. Your tit, my tat. Remember this one I posted back in September? Maintenance problems? Not according to the FAA:

BW)(FL-AIRTRAN)(AAI) FAA Awards AirTran for Aviation Maintenance Technician Training; Airline's Participation Rate Near-Perfect 98 Percent

Business & Travel Editors


ORLANDO, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will recognize AirTran Airways with a `Special Recognition' award for the company's outstanding 98% participation rate in the FAA's Aviation Maintenance Technician (AMT) Safety Training Program. In addition, each of AirTran's maintenance bases - located in Atlanta, Boston, Ft. Lauderdale, Washington, D.C. and Orlando - will each receive `Diamond Award' certificates of excellence for exceeding the participation level required by the FAA. Both the Atlanta and Boston bases had 100% participation rates.
"We are very pleased with AirTran's overall near-perfect company-wide maintenance technician participation for AMT training. This means that 211 out of AirTran's 216 maintenance technicians were recognized by the FAA for their dedication and commitment to training, thus ensuring that FAA safety codes and regulations are strictly observed," said David Sexton, Instructor Technical Training, AirTran.
AirTran Airways, Inc. will receive a special `Corporate' award and will be formally honored by the FAA for this achievement during an awards ceremony. This is the third time that AirTran received a company award for exceeding the FAA's requirements for employer participation in the AMT training program since the airline began participation in 1995. AirTran also maintains a very sought-after Apprentice Maintenance Technician training program at its maintenance training facilities in Atlanta and Orlando.
In addition to distinguishing AirTran with a company award, the FAA awards technicians' accomplishments on an individual basis. The FAA bestows five different types of awards, depending upon the hours of training an individual completes. More than half of AirTran's AMTs received the two highest ranking awards - the Diamond Award for 60 hours of training plus three hours of college credit; and the Ruby Award for 60 hours of training. Other awards include the Gold Award for 20 hours of training; the Silver Award for 12 hours of training; and the Bronze Award for 6 hours of training. To be eligible for the awards, an individual must be an FAA-certified mechanic or repairman working on FAA type certified, U.S.- registered aircraft.
Recipient of Entrepreneur magazine's 1998 award for "Best Domestic Low-Fare Airline," AirTran provides everyday, affordable air travel throughout the eastern United States and Midwest. Unlike other airlines, AirTran never requires a roundtrip purchase or Saturday night stay. AirTran is the launch customer for the new Boeing 717-200.

[jetmech717]

keep up the good work haze, but you dont have to look far for good things about AirTran.
Press Release Source: AirTran Airways

AirTran Airways Opens New Pilot Training Center in Metro Atlanta
Thursday February 26, 11:00 am ET
Multi-Million Dollar, State-of-the-Art Facility Will Be Home To More Than 850 Pilots

And low-cost carrier AirTran Holdings Inc. (NYSE:AAI - News) saw revenue passenger miles rise 28.7% in February as capacity rose 27.8%. Load factor increased 0.5 percentage points to 66.7%.

and many, many other achievements throughout the months, but no need to show them all....I'm sure Baker is checking the news regularly for gossip.

[haze]

Definately no need to show them all, but this one stood out:

[ The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 1/23/04 ]

AirTran earnings increase sharply
Airline plans to add 14 planes, 300-400 jobs, mostly in Atlanta

By RUSSELL GRANTHAM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution


AirTran Airways' profit nearly tripled in the fourth quarter despite rising fuel prices and stiff competition that eroded fares.

The discount carrier is slowing growth slightly, but still plans to add 14 jets to its fleet and to hire 300 to 400 employees this year, mostly at its Atlanta flight hub.

If dbaker wants to rehash older insignificant tidbits because he has nothing else, I'm here to counter :P

[dbaker]

Wow, an FAA award? Of course, in yesterday's Wall Street Journal:

Who's Inspecting Your Airplane?
Carriers Now Outsource More Of Their Maintenance, But FAa Supervision is Lax
Airlines are increasingly paying other copmanies to do their maintenance for them. But it has become painfully clear that the Federal Aviation Administration doesn't spend enough time checking up on these outside repair shops.

(snip)

Sounds a lot like VJ592, huh?

p.s. I never doubted that you could make money by cutting corners, so nobody is disputing that point and you're not impressing me there.

[jetmech717]

Baker states:

p.s. I never doubted that you could make money by cutting corners, so nobody is disputing that point and you're not impressing me there.

I guess building a new state of the art training facility for our pilots, mechanics and Flight Attendants is really cutting corners? Sounds like your deeply confused.
I promise you AirTran is not cutting any corners when it comes to maintenance!!!!!!! That article sounds alot like every airline in the industry to me. Now if you want to blame someone then blame your precious FAA that you get all your information and reports from. By the way AirTran only contracts out our "C" checks and we do all the other maintenace, but with the hanger in Atl being almost complete I can see us doing it all one day down the road. Is it OK with you Baker if we send our tires to a vender to get re-treaded, or if we send our Avionics boxes (LRU's) back to the manufactuers to get reprogramed or repaired, or how about when we send the engines back to Rolles for periodic inspections so they can make recomendations and changes. Is it ok if we can do that or would you like us to do EVERYTHING ourselves. I appreciate the confidence in our AirTran maintenance program but contrary to popular belief we are not experts at every component on the airplane. Thanks for the boost though. Ok I told myself I wouldnt let you pull me back into this crap your trying to sell so you can get things a "buzz" on your web site, so I hope this will be the end of you again. Its been a peaceful few months.

[haze]

Originally Posted by dbaker

Sounds a lot like VJ592, huh?

p.s. I never doubted that you could make money by cutting corners, so nobody is disputing that point and you're not impressing me there.

Yes, it does sound exactly like VJ592. ValuJet's maintenance outsourcing to SabreTech was one of the main reasons for VJ592. That's why I'm so glad SabreTech is no longer in business and AirTran doesn't outsource maintenance like ValuJet did. ValuJet didn't have much of an in-house maintenance program. But AirTran's in-house maintenance program has been awarded the FAA's highest honor on several occasions, the coveted Diamond Award for safety/training/maintenance. Apples and oranges, my misinformed friend

Hey, I've got a great idea! Why don't you start a ValuJet message board where we can all discuss the way not to run an airline. I'd be more than happy to chime in quite often and point out why ValuJet was such a terrible and scary airline. That way, we could keep all that ValuJet info from tangling up this AirTran site since they have nothing to do with one another. Start a seperate thread somewhere else so we can all discuss the pariah that was ValuJet, but leave the AirTran site for AirTran discussions

If you can't seperate the two, I guess you'd better go ahead and add Eastern airlines to the AirTran thread too since many of their employees, pilots, flight attendants, etc. went on to work for AirTran. Not an official "merger" like ValuJet and AirTran consumated (yes, AirTran was an actual airline before they merged with ValuJet but dbaker would just die if everyone knew that information). But Eastern did eventually end up being essentially "absorbed" into AirTran through the years. Oh but wait, that wouldn't fit your agenda. Those added number of years, flights, aircraft, incidents, etc would skew the numbers for AirTran in too positive of a direction. You prefer to just use ValuJet to skew AirTran's numbers in a negaitve direction, although none of ValuJet's aircraft and very few of their people and none of their practices are present at AirTran today. But Eastern's are

Of course I'm being a little fecitious, but ValuJet is not AirTran just like Eastern is not AirTran. They are simply remnants of two old airlines of which AirTran took the best parts and built the juggernaut of today.

Not "impressing you there?" You've never impressed me much of anywhere, except with your uncanny ability to pathalogically distort reality

[dbaker]

Yes, it does sound exactly like VJ592. ValuJet's maintenance outsourcing to SabreTech was one of the main reasons for VJ592. That's why I'm so glad SabreTech is no longer in business and AirTran doesn't outsource maintenance like ValuJet did. ValuJet didn't have much of an in-house maintenance program.

Before you get cocky with me, you might want to check your facts.

According to The Wall Street Journal on March 3rd, 2004, AirTran outsources 32.9% of maintenance. Their source, "U.S. DOT from 41 reports, compiled by Eclat Consulting" and is based on the percentage of maintenance dollars spent on outsourced maintenance for one year ending September 30th.

Apples and oranges, my misinformed friend

If only that was correct, you'd come off quite well! The reality is that my posts are based on factual reports and data, whereas the AirTran supporters (understandably so) largely mindlessly support the biz.

[Delta7203]

Baker, Baker, Baker... come on man your killing me! You can't just put some random precentage up on a thread and not give something to compare it too!

And, since we are talking about facts, lets switch to politics really quick (since it is election year!)...

Kerry did serve in Vietnam and Bush was just in the ANG! HOWEVER, Kerry was there for three band-aids and a gauze pad (four months), came back home, grew his hair out and protested with Jane Fonda...some how that part of the story gets thrownout when the liberal news networks make up their news! My point is that facts can be skewed Baker!!!!!...just like the Georgia SAT scores!

- John

[haze]

Originally Posted by dbaker

Before you get cocky with me, you might want to check your facts.

According to The Wall Street Journal on March 3rd, 2004, AirTran outsources 32.9% of maintenance. Their source, "U.S. DOT from 41 reports, compiled by Eclat Consulting" and is based on the percentage of maintenance dollars spent on outsourced maintenance for one year ending September 30th.

If only that was correct, you'd come off quite well! The reality is that my posts are based on factual reports and data, whereas the AirTran supporters (understandably so) largely mindlessly support the biz.

Never implied that AirTran doesn't outsource maintenance, I simply said that "AirTran doesn't outsource maintenance like ValuJet did." On the contrary, they outsource MUCH less. All airlines outsource some maintenance, as your WSJ article clearly states. Why don't you post the percentages (since you seem to be well-aware of those stats) of all the major airlines? Because that wouldn't suit your agenda.

I think I probably come off quite well anyway, most of the readers here are intelligent enough to see exactly what's going on with this AirTran thead. Cocky? Naaaaaaa, just hitting the nail on the head.