THE THEORY OF ELASTICITY

Recent thrust to increase OTP has undoubtedly shown an upward trend in increasing OTP for the 1^st half of October too by 90.14% after Sept., 2011. This was possible because employees who were supposed to work towards increasing the performance were not behaving in a responsible way. A slight tightness at this end showed the remarkable result whereby OTP jumps from 70 to 90%.

The same theory does not hold true for Engineering. We are already stretched to the elastic limit and further force will break or transform us into plastic range. The irony is with our own bosses who fail to understand this simple theory which we have read numerous times (Theory of elasticity) till we perform our job as engineer.

In the industry elsewhere in the world, a component is removed to install whereas in our organisation this process does not hold good as we remove twice before installing the component. To elaborate this, we remove (a sub standard as per CAR) component from grounded aircraft to install it on the aircraft intended to rectify by removing its own faulty component.

The recent fleet of A 320 family aircraft are flying with multiple snags under MEL for want of spares. No one knows why we have not maintained the minimum standard level of inventory to maintain the fleet so much so that recent groundings are the result of low or no inventory.

Today we are not only struggling for float engines and its modules but spares like HMU, ECU and many more such component. No engineers are responsible for this but the one who is accountable are always spared.

If we still fail to sense gravity of situation about the optimum investment in engineering for procurement of spares, humiliating engineers by withdrawing all their facilities slowly and slowly; forcing them to compromise with the inspection procedure with respect to time and spares, future is bleak and we may face more grounding and cancellations in future throwing the trend of improvement haywire.

Recent grounding of SCB, EPB & SCE may be the result of unavailability of spares and were avoidable.

To keep the performance trend continuously upward, it is of utmost importance to take care the sentiments of engineers and their plights, availability of spares and its placement, proper tools and equipments.  

Nightmare of Nightshift

The struggle starts immediately after our reporting in night shift.

In spite of many new departments which are now in existence in order to improve productivity, reduce expenditure and bring the working culture at par with the international standard in the industry by an expense of crores and crores of rupees; all such department may show their worth in future but it seems wasteful expenditure at ground level. No one is there to take decision and function as a bridge to share information at top level.

Engineers who are waiting for their aircraft to work with in maintenance in night shift, are taken aback when they realised that the sun is about to rise in the east and he had just wasted whole night waiting for spares, arranging and managing with only one Wheel Jack, no proper steps to work with, only one APU step, Leaking TP gauges and U/S HP gauges. Nitrogen bottles with low pressure and without proper opening tool.

Early in the morning at departure; where he ;some how managed to do the assigned inspection and ready down below the nose, a call from A/H embarrassed him when she asks for replacement of dirty seat covers, hanging galley curtains for want of its hooks, missing soap solution and stinking lavatory with low and no water in the galley.

He remains unanswered thinking he even could not managed to replace even a wheel due no Jack and even no wheels for couple of days, what to answer her about her query. How much serious are we really about the turning around our ailing carrier?

Can our aircraft & Airlines survive the fierce competition without well maintained aircraft with shabby looking interiors? We have a doubt but may be top management looking upward away from our working environment & climatic condition towards western experts. Their technique to revive our airlines was happily accepted in past by spending huge money but was of no use.

It is better that we should focus doing small thing to achieve big-to revive/turning around our airlines.

We must focus and invest money to procure spares for Airframe, engine and APU.

Based upon fleet repetitive snags, spares must be placed and planned where ever that aircraft is doing night halt.

Years long demand of maintenance crew of placing A/C Jacks (other than one), Steps needed for maintenance, sky jack for APU, Nitrogen bottles, TP & HP gauges, Placement of universal kit, A/C seats, galley curtain hooks and other spares to rectify pax seats & its back rest, table etc must be met with.

Radome, oleo and air intake for all the night halt a/c must be cleaned by our engineering helper other than deep cleaning.

Procurement & Placement of spares will minimise the grounding/cancellation of the aircraft and then we can have an edge over other private carriers and lure the passengers.

Unless above stated small things are not planned and met with, maintenance crew nightmare may last longer and whatever our top executive plan to take a big leap in the process of revival will be of no use.