(Thanks for quoting the original, Alireza) I cannot see how an airline with the fleet size of JetBlue can justify outsourcing to a foreign country the maintenance of its aircraft. It has the economy of scales to do its own maintenance, at least up to the C check. If the aircraft maintenance must be outsourced in a foreign country, it should be done either through the aircraft maintenance or a major company such as Lufthansa. David R http://home.comcast.net/~damiross/books.html www.sequoians.com www.chanticleers.org -----Original Message----- From: The Airline List [mailto:AIRLINE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Alireza Alivandivafa Sent: Monday, October 24, 2005 21:14 To: AIRLINE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: outsourcing When you are running a business, particularly one on the scale of a major airline, you want maintainance done to the highest degree possible (theoretically) because not only is liability an issue, but so is your airline's reputation, which directly effects the bottom line. Look at ValuJet and how they bought another carrier, AirTran, just so they could take on their name. Even the billions Joe Leonard stashed away prior to the crash would not have saved them if Critter was still on their DC-9s and the then coming MD95s (717s). With economies of scale, a major airline should be able to perform maintainance in house at a relatively low cost considering they are not trying to make a profit on it, just to keep the costs as low as possible without compromising their position in the marketplace. In many ways, outsourcing is a false economy, but a carrier like jetBlue that doesn't have the infrastructure, nor the cash position to build it will have to outsource until they are able to build up their own ops. I hope that long rambling point made clear just why taking your car to the shop is different than an airline with 80 multi-million dollar airplanes doing the same. In a message dated 10/25/2005 12:02:54 AM Eastern Daylight Time, gfoley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes: If you don't know how to do it yourself and don't want to learn, better find someone who does. When I lived in houses I outsourced all the maintenance I could, and still do it for cars.