United Airlines will resume its aircraft painting program, but its use of an outside vendor has stoked anger amongst a wide cross section of employees who view the project as wasteful during a time of austerity.
United Airlines Resumes Aircraft Paint Program, Sparking Controversy
In a memo to employees shared with Live and Let’s Fly, United announced it would resume its aircraft painting program after suspending it when the pandemic started:
The newly-approved 2021 plan calls for painting the 50 neediest aircraft first based on numerous factors including their most recent appearance audit findings, securing capacity with our vendors, obtaining network allocation and consideration of maintenance or storage events that are already on the schedule.
The project will begin later this month with one line for widebody aircraft and another for narrowbody aircraft. The speed of the program will be based upon how consumer demand develops over the year, which impacts aircraft utilization.
Employees from many work groups reached out to Live and Let’s Fly and the sentiment was near unanimous: how dare United repaint aircraft while it lays off employees and accepts taxpayer funding? If painting is so essential, why not have the painting done in-house?
However, I reached out to a United maintenance worker for his take on the incident and was told:
“Look, it’s not that simple. We cannot just do the painting ourselves. We used to do touchups at some stations, but we are talking about aircraft that really need paint. This isn’t a vanity project and should never have been put off in the first place.”
I also reached out to a pilot, who explained that if paint issues are left unresolved, they can turn into serious maintenance issues.
United Airlines refused to comment for my story, though the pilot shared an internal clarification employees received after many protested the paint job announcement:
To clarify the purpose of our paint line activity in 2021, the objective is only to address the appearance of aircraft that are in poor paint condition. They will of course receive the new livery but that is not the driving goal of the painting that will be accomplished during 2021.
Still, a flight attendant insisted that the program represented toxic optics:
“They [United] want to tell me they care about us when they choose paint over people? What an insult to all of us. What an insult to American taxpayers.”
CONCLUSION
I took the picture above just a week ago at Chicago O’Hare. Lately, I’ve noticed many aircraft that require paint jobs. While the attitude of many employees that saving jobs should be prioritized over repainting is not unreasonable, deferred maintenance can lead to far greater and more expensive issues later on. Furthermore, aircraft like the plane above simply looks unprofessional. Here, it seems to me that United cannot be faulted for resuming its repainting program.
As for whether it should be done in-house is another issue. While issues of comparative and competitive advantage generally come into play, the pandemic has idled many United maintenance workers, at least two of which told Live and Let’s Fly they would be happy to do the paint themselves. If liability and safety issues can be overcome, this seems like a reasonable way to use taxpayer money to keep workers gainfully employed (versus simply outsourcing the painting to contractors).
Should the United Airlines aircraft paint program continue during this time? Should painting be completed only by employees?
Gotta admit, I’m super confused by this. Isn’t United already paying all their employees as stipulation of the PSP? So why would insourcing this cause fewer employees to be laid off?
Second, do they have the internal ability to paint the aircraft. Is there any airline in the country that does full repaints internally?
Finally, isn’t this part of a maintenance program? Repainting at some interval is required maintenance work. Would people prefer required maintenance isn’t done?
The thought is that this will be an ongoing program and United has already sent out WARN notices to employees letting thousands know they will be gone the moment the federal teat runs dry.
PMUA had a tone deaf minority of union employees with a very ‘us vs them’ mentality (with ‘them’ including passengers) and see some are still around
Based on what?
I agree United should be “insourcing” as many operations as possible in order to keep their wonderful people working hard – for example, could basic cleaning duties between flights (and perhaps even some deeper disinfecting work) be reserved for on-duty flight crews, or for flight crews lacking available hours? We know the United team wants to be working – let them!
Yeah, lol. Flight attendants doubling as cleaning crews – including disinfecting. This is America. It will intrude on their Candy Crush playing while waiting for boarding. Or, well, at any time for that matter.
Check your terminology — it’s competitive advantage! Comparative advantage is a term from international trade economics, referring to an entirely different concept!
No… “Comparative advantage” only refers to the comparison between 2 parties, regardless of sizes. When I first learnt of this, the example given involved a lawyer and their secretary, very much not country-size parties.
I just flew on a 777 that needed a paint job at least a year ago, the top half of the plane was more pale green than white. I think it would be great to see the the furloughed flight attendants taping up the plane for it to be painted. I love it when people argue about what a company spends money on, but then refuse to do anything other than “their job”.
Also, it’s great to see “normal” comments on a travel site. I used to read OMAAT a lot and stopped because of the comments, I looked again a day ago or so and the comments are almost all negative comments about why people shouldn’t be traveling.
I also think it’s somewhat hilarious when frontline workers in one area of a company with no actual understanding of how the larger company works pontificate publicly and vociferously on actions wholly unrelated to them. As if United’s maintenance and contracts shop deign to provide FAs with even a modicum of information on anything they do unless it specifically impacts their job. I can’t roll my eyes hard enough at know-it-all Karen, the 60-year-old FA who hates passengers, hates flying, and merely goes through the motions for the benefits when she posts long rants on Facebook. This is even truer after the handouts the airline industry has received that has kept FAs “employed” when millions of others lost their livelihoods. STFU already.
To perhaps add some clarity, planes are scheduled for paint every (approximately) 7 to 9 years as part of the standard maintenance schedule. It’s comparable to spending money to paint a home, rather than spend more later for rotted wood and metal corrosion repairs. UA delayed painting a couple years ago, but can’t delay indefinitely. There is a also a huge cost to setup, train, and get environmental approvals for a paint facility, so it’s not a task they can simply have UA employees do. It’s far cheaper to continue outsourcing maintenence required paint jobs despite the negative public perception.
For these kinds of things (maintenance of safety-critical assets), insourcing and outsourcing are not as simple as “whichever costs less.”
Look, I would not be surprised if only certain type of paint is allowed, which may require specific training and certified equipment to handle. I am not sure if it also needs any specific factory requirements and whatnot. Look at it from United’s perspective. If they miss some paperwork to prove to certain authority (FDA? FAA? FDC?) that everything is exactly as required, this could blow up. Worse yet, if an employee gets hurt handling stuff they may or may not be certified to handle, well… Worse yet, if there is any problem afterward (flaking that causes a plane to turn around, for example), imagine the blackslash!
Obviously, I don’t have concrete data, so these are projection. However, to setup a process to paint a few planes just to avoid the label of “outsourcing” may cost so much more that United may have to destroy extra job to compensate. Doesn’t sound like a good idea to me.
This is correct in essence. United is not set up to do whole-aircraft repainting. To do so would require significant infrastructure, supply chain, materials handling and disposal, etc. There are plenty of time lapse videos on YouTube of aircraft being repainted – it is not a trivial process.
I was an engineer for United – they take safety seriously. To spin up a paint program would involve significant due diligence in managing the health and safety hazards involved with paint storage, application, disposal, runoff, etc. Not to say that it can’t or or wouldn’t be done, but in many cases, it’s easier and simpler to leave the specialty tasks to specialty companies.
In terms of the necessity of the paint program during these times – yes, it is necessary as part of ongoing maintenance of the aircraft. Paint seals out water, preventing corrosion of metallic components, and water ingress related problems with composite components.
United has to do something with all the money the government has thrown at them. Why not paint the planes they’re keeping?
Based on the comments left on this site by United FAs, I’m quite frankly surprised to see them so concerned about protecting their fellow coworkers jobs. They seemed to have no problem seeing fellow FAs with less than 20 years seniority get the boot. I think no matter what UA decides to do, the union is against the decision.
Good article, you did your due diligence in objectively looking at both sides of the issue! The complaining from the flight attendants about this is why I have considered United to be one of the worst airlines around and refuse to fly them. The whining going on by them is a reflection on how they treat their customers.
It’s all of them. United is not special. It’s any airline with a bevy of senior entitled flight attendants that have no clue to the reality of how good they have it in doing what is essentialy a Starbucks job at a pay that exceeds most nurses.
But…but…they’re primarily here for our safety, right?! Right?! So, they’re SUPER important and should probably be wearing orange safety vests. I mean, surely 65-year-old Nancy at 5’6” and 200 lbs of seething hatred for passengers will be able to drag an unconscious, 6’2”, 225 lbs passenger down the aisle to the emergency exit. The airline, the pilots, and the FAs themselves all assure me of this every time they remind me there “here primarily for [my] safety”.
I don’t find that to be the case in “all of them.” I used to be an avid AA flyer until they became nasty from a on board experience, but still not like UA. I now fly DL and they are clearly heads and tails above the other two in customer service, both at the airport and on board.
Have we heard anything on the (ugly) new teal/purple uniforms that were supposed to take shape in 2020?
As I mentioned when they were put on hold, I was hoping that COVID might be a good excuse to sweep these under the rug and forget that they ever happened.
And also, I quite like the 2013 uniforms….
Uniforms are put on indefinite hold. I doubt we will see them for many years. (I actually liked the fancier female ones)
I’m a UAL FA. I’m not infuriated. I think quite a few of the planes are in dire need of paint and I’m glad it’s being done. I do know I have no idea how to paint a plane so I’m glad the company is using someone who does.
And NDG, silver lining of Covid is that we don’t have to wear those hideous uniforms. I will always be grateful to the virus for that.
Ever try and get a house painted in SFO..? The enviormental regulations make it cost prohibitive…
United had facilities in San Francisco, California a few years ago at the ge maintenance base next to the international airport. The had the setup to strip and repaint the whole aircraft.
In about about the late 90’s United’s management made some poor decisions and started to farm out aircraft maintenance slowly. Then again poor decisions were made for the immediate profit, not for the long term planning.
This was done for two simple reasons that are apparent.