American Airlines moving work out of Fort Worth base

11:17 PM CDT on Monday, July 28, 2008
By TERRY MAXON / The Dallas Morning News
tmaxon@dallasnews.com

American Airlines Inc. is moving maintenance support for its Boeing 777 aircraft from its Alliance Airport base in Fort Worth to its Tulsa, Okla., base, the airline confirmed Monday.
At the same time, American is sending additional work on the Boeing 767 to Alliance, reducing the impact on the Fort Worth facility.

An airline spokesman said it will be several weeks before the carrier can say how many job cuts or layoffs may be needed at Alliance, which has about 1,900 workers represented by the Transport Workers Union, as well as 175 management and specialist employees and 30 clerical workers.

The changes are part of American's restructuring as it prepares to cut its domestic capacity 11 percent to 12 percent, resulting in an 8 percent cut in overall flying capacity (including international service) by the fourth quarter.

American's executives have said overall employment will be cut in line with the 8 percent capacity reduction.

Maintenance and engineering employees learned of the looming changes Friday in a letter from Fred Cleveland, vice president of base maintenance.

American spokesman John Hotard said Monday that the airline won't know how many jobs may be cut at its three maintenance bases at Alliance, Tulsa and Kansas City, Mo., until sometime in August.

The Kansas City base could be in the biggest peril. It was acquired when American bought Trans World Airlines Inc. in 2001. None of the reallocated work thus far has gone to Kansas City.

Among the changes in the works:
•Boeing 777 maintenance checks will move from Alliance to Tulsa this fall. "The B777 will be a good fit, as the [Tulsa] base has the capacity for wide-body aircraft and a workforce that has wide-body experience," Mr. Cleveland wrote.
•Alliance, which now does the Boeing 777 work, will take on additional Boeing 767 duties. Its repair line will be upgraded to do maintenance checks as well, Mr. Cleveland's letter stated.
•American will combine the maintenance lines for its own McDonnell Douglas MD-80 jets and that for major customer Allegiant Air at the Tulsa base.
American plans to park 30 of its 300 MD-80 aircraft by year's end, with more expected to leave the fleet in 2009 as American takes delivery of 33 new fuel-efficient Boeing 737-800 airplanes.

Tulsa, which has been doing work on American's Airbus A300 fleet, will lose that job over the next 17 months as American grounds all 34 of its A300 jets, including 10 in 2008.
Kansas City is the smallest of the three bases and is home for the Boeing 767-200 fleet.