American has been flying the A321neo (pictured) since 2019 and is expecting to begin receiving Airbus A321XLRs late next year.
Mark Miner, vice president for technical services at American Airlines, discusses with Lindsay Bjerregaard how it is tackling workforce and supply chain challenges and preparing for emerging technologies.
American will be seeing some fleet changes over the next decade, and it has a lot of new aircraft on order, including Boom Supersonic Overtures. From the maintenance perspective, how are you preparing to support these new aircraft? For us, it’s mostly an expansion of where we have our skills and strengths right now. We’re also limited, but right now, outside of the Boom Supersonic, it’s just different variants of fleets we already have. We’ll see some changes with the entrance of the Airbus A321XLR late next year, but it’s the same A321/A320 family we have a lot of experience with. So it’s us focusing on continuing to enrich the training we have around those models and understanding, as the aircraft matures, what specific system issues we may need to focus training on to mitigate challenges as they merge with the fleet.
[The Boom Supersonic] is further out in the future, so most of us see that as an investment opportunity to understand emerging technology and how it may help the industry advance, but there’s just not enough information now to effectively plan around how we would manage that.
Has there been progress on the new widebody MRO facility in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that was announced in early 2020? Are there other maintenance facility growth plans in the works? Facilities are always a challenge for airlines, and where you invest in those facilities becomes especially important because that is a huge capital investment. [Regarding the Tulsa facility], we’re now seeing ourselves in a different space. We’re still evaluating the facility needs and certainly recognize the many opportunities and advantages it has for us in terms of presence, but also working with Oklahoma state as well as local communities there. So we are looking at that, but it’s not just limited to Tulsa—we’re looking at our entire maintenance network and understanding on a broader 5-10-year range where we’re going to need those types of facilities and where we need to make those capital investments.
How is American managing the supply chain issues that have been plaguing the entire aftermarket? I think it’s fair to say it has improved in the last year. We’re encouraged because we have suppliers working with us that are very transparent, so when issues come up—regardless of what they may be and whether you might question if they should have earlier warnings or insight—they’re very transparent around the situation. They’ve been very good to tell us when they believe they will recover, and we haven’t seen too many of those recovery plans slip.
We’re still not out of the woods, and we’re still seeing some challenges in some key areas, regardless of who the manufacturer is. Some of these [challenges] go back to the OEMs, with issues they’re having with certain components, but we have seen progress. We still have some that just aren’t able to get there, but others are certainly at the forefront of getting ahead of their supply chain challenges.
What type of workforce demand are you experiencing, and are you having difficulty finding enough new skilled workers? The entire industry is looking at what we can do to make sure there’s a solid pipeline of candidates coming in, given how much has changed post-pandemic in terms of the opportunities. We’re working actively with both the airframe and powerplant (A&P) schools and in public education to make sure there’s an awareness of opportunities in aircraft maintenance fields. Fortunately, we haven’t had significant challenges, but major airlines tend to draw from other sources within the industry, and those areas are challenged.
Because of the pandemic-related loss of talent and that pipeline declining, the applicants we’re getting don’t have the depth of experience they used to have. Most major airlines had a requirement and were able to attract people who had several years of jet experience, but now we’re getting applicants who just don’t have that. The challenge for us is to help build that as quickly as we can and get them exposure to what they need to be skilled in at their jobs, but also share with [A&P schools] what’s most critical for them to be focused on so when students get their A&P licenses, they’re equipped and ready to go.
How does American approach training less experienced new hires to get them up to speed? It’s a mix of classroom, on-the-job and web-based training. We also have some virtual training options. It builds from the fundamentals and understanding our basic practices and processes, and how we manage the workload on the aircraft and the references necessary for them to do their jobs. It also expands into more skill-based areas, whether it’s avionics or specific aircraft systems, for more in-depth training.
American has been involved in green initiatives such as the use of sustainable aviation fuel. Are there any sustainability initiatives happening within Tech Ops? For Tech Ops, it not only includes the aircraft, but also ground equipment. We have a lot of initiatives going on around ground support equipment (GSE). We already have electric GSE in a lot of our locations, and in some, that’s mandated by local regulations, so we’re advancing that in several cities. We’re also looking at how to further that as part of our GSE investment, because there’s always a replenishment, similar to an aircraft fleet. We’re starting to hear more about the possibility of hydrogen-powered equipment, and I think there’s a lot of practical applications of that potential technology in the GSE.
Does American have possible hydrogen-powered aircraft on its radar? I think [all airlines] do, but it’s not as simple as having hydrogen power because the practicality is similar to electric. The infrastructure to support that is a huge challenge. In some cases, we’ve had more electric equipment at airports than there was the infrastructure to charge, and that creates more challenges. I think GSE is probably the more practical place for hydrogen than aircraft, because I’ve heard some speculation of how much payload you can carry, given the challenges of hydrogen.
Which new technologies is American looking into for maintenance? We see huge opportunities from a technology standpoint to dynamically change how we manage maintenance work on aircraft, whether it’s predictive or routine, and leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning. We think we can automate a lot of our processes. We’re looking at opportunities, and we think we’ve got some great ideas, but those are multiyear journeys. We see it as a long-term strategic opportunity to significantly transform how we’re managing the maintenance of aircraft and leveraging the value of data to do it more efficiently.
We’re also getting ready to roll out electronic logbook capabilities we developed internally along with maintenance and our flight team. We see this as a significant game changer for how we manage maintenance, enabling us to capture much more data throughout the normal management of aircraft logbooks. We think the product we have is superior [to other electronic logbook products], and it certainly is going to be the best product for American Airlines in the fleet we operate.
American Airlines Fact File
Headquarters: Fort Worth, Texas
Founded: 1926
Fleet: As of the second quarter of 2023, American Airlines operates the world’s largest commercial aircraft fleet, which included approximately 948 aircraft in its mainline fleet as of September 2023. It flies Airbus A320-family classic and new-generation variants, Boeing 737 Classic and MAX variants as well as Boeing 777 and 787 widebodies. American is the world’s largest operator of the 787-8 variant. More deliveries of 737 MAXs and 787-9s are expected in 2024, along with the introduction of the A321XLR.
MRO capability: American Airlines Tech Ops conducts maintenance on American’s fleet and does not undertake third-party maintenance work. Its main facility is in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where it employs nearly 5,000 people.
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