Outsourced airline repairs raise concerns

WASHINGTON, June 26 (UPI) -- The U.S. Congress is examining a recent increase in the outsourcing of airline repairs and maintenance and federal inspectors' ability to monitor them.

"If the American people understood some of the safety and security issues surrounding foreign repair stations, they would march on Washington with pitchforks," Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said at a hearing last week The Christian Science Monitor reported.

The amount of airline repairs and maintenance outsourced to private and foreign companies increased from 37 percent in 1996 to the current 64 percent, the Monitor reported. The FAA doesn't keep track of how much of the work is done overseas, but a Transportation Department official said it is a significant amount, the newspaper said.

Critics of the new repair structure said the work leaves the airliners exposed to possible terrorists and is not subject to the same regulations and inspections that in-house repairs are.

Labor unions representing airline mechanics and FAA inspectors are among the critics, the Monitor reported.