After decreasing quantities of staff that gradually fell through the years, American Airlines has permanently shut their aircraft overhaul facility at Kansas City International Airport.
What had been once a anchor for industry aviation mechanics and avionics technician workers ever since the 1970′s has now ended and along with it five decades of commercial aviation maintenance that created good-paying employment for generations of individuals.
There will be no ceremonial goodbyes, just simply cleaning up and also removing items for the 50 salaried employees and 400 union employees left.
Quite a few staff continue to be sour related to the circumstances that triggered the shutdown and the transfer of work to other bases.
“If there’s one word to describe the feeling, ‘indignation’ sums it up,” stated Ron Harp, an American maintenance services mechanic whom had been hired in 1977.
Harp and others are grateful that the massive base received a couple of added years of existence when American purchased TWA from a bankruptcy proceeding in 2001. Nevertheless they still were not in a mood this week to wax nostalgic regarding the base’s history.
“This facility had the best resources and assets at its peak,” Harp claimed. “But a lot of its capabilities and work processes have been stripped away through the years to what we’re down to now.
“My thoughts run the gamut, but it’s basically a sad day.”
Like the staff, Kansas City, who are the owners of the base, will be left to pick-up the pieces. City aviation and economic development administrators claim they are positive that the facility will continue to draw tenants as well as create job opportunities. 3 companies currently inhabit sections of the facility.
But the presence of American — and also the days of an airline filling up the 7 million-square-foot base — will be through.
Before, American stated that it regretted the cutbacks of the maintenance operations — the Kansas City base and also five scaled-down operations at other airports.
Gordon Clark, president of Transport Workers Union Local 530, mentioned staff had already noted the closing.
At one previous event, roughly 3,000 former TWA workers and existing American personnel and aviation engineer specialists gathered at Wheeler Downtown Airport’s TWA Museum. They noted the end of a time that began in 1956 when TWA started leasing the facility and moved its maintenance work there.
In its prime from the 1960s and 1970s, TWA had been Kansas City’s number one private employer, with the overhaul facility regarded as the crown jewel of the airline’s area operations. TWA’s mechanics created a reputation as being amongst the best in the airline industry, a legacy which carried on under American’s ownership.
Amid all of TWA’s turmoil, the Kansas City overhaul base survived, at the time still employing about 2,600 people at the time of American’s takeover in 2001.
However , the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks dealt another strike to the airline industry, and the hopes and plans of the city and American were not good enough to save the base.
Two years back, American stated it was relocating a large portion of maintenance work from Kansas City to its main facility in Tulsa, Okla., slicing Kansas City’s work force of approximately 1,000 in half. And last October, American declared that it would close the Kansas City facility.
About one half of American’s 400 mechanics, a&p mechanic staff and associated union staff in Kansas City will transfer to various American maintenance facilities in St. Louis, Tulsa and Dallas.
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