How many workers are currently employed to AirJ?

[Karl]

I wonder on the numbers that will be added to the unemployed on April 12 and on the numbers who depend on these persons for financial sustenance?

Anyone with the projected figures?

[Willi]

1607 were employed.

This pales in comparison to how many jobs the current recession removed in Jamaica.

When Carreras/the shoe polish company/Palmolive, etc moved to Trinidad to avoid Omar and his taxes, how many jobs did that cost? How long was your crucade then?

[MdmeX]

1607 were employed.

This pales in comparison to how many jobs the current recession removed in Jamaica.

When Carreras/the shoe polish company/Palmolive, etc moved to Trinidad to avoid Omar and his taxes, how many jobs did that cost? How long was your crucade then?

Willi - you're an evil person - why yuh slapping my fren like that

[Mosiah]

Did Carreras/the shoe polish company/Palmolive bring millions of US dollar-spending tourists to Jamaica? Were their flight attendants as beautiful as Air Jamaica's?

Okay then!

[Assasin]

We no want manufacturing, a just high tech, service industry we a deal wid. Ask Jawge if you think a lie

[Willi]

LoL

What was I thinking!

Plus dem never have fashion show in the sky, so those jobs dont matter.

[MdmeX]

All is not lost

Government likely to keep Air J's maintenance unit

BY INGRID BROWN Observer senior reporter browni@jamaicaobserver.com
Thursday, March 04, 2010


AIR Jamaica's main-tenance unit could be retained as a separate entity when Government concludes negotiations to divest the national carrier to Trinidad-owned Caribbean Airlines, industry officials say.

"It is my understanding that the maintenance unit is not a part of the current negotiations," Transport Minister Mike Henry admitted when pressed by the Observer.

"The operation is being looked at as a separate entity and I would not be able to give any more information than that because it is a continuous exercise which is being re-examined and looked at," he added.

He explained, however, that it is an option he has raised with Prime Minister Bruce Golding, who has advised that the possibility of establishing the maintenance department as an independent maintenance and repair organisation (MRO) is being examined.

Asked if the operation would continue at its current Norman Manley International Airport (NMIA) location, Henry said with the airport coming under the enterprise privatisation committee for divestment, this also would have to be examined.

In the meantime, the idea that the maintenance unit should not be divested but retained as a separate entity has the support of Colonel Oscar Derby, director general of the Jamaica Civil Aviation Authority.

"If you have a small fleet of aircraft it makes little sense for you to invest in an MRO, so in order to achieve better economies of scale most operators -- and they are required to have a MRO or to outsource -- establish the MRO as a revenue centre instead of a cost centre and that is usually a better business model," Derby told the Observer.
He said this would also allow for the aviation industry in Jamaica to grow in the areas of aerospace business, which is the engineering support to the aviation industry.

"And so with a school established to train people in aircraft maintenance engineering it makes a lot of sense for us to have an MRO in Jamaica to provide an outlet for those persons who are trained," he said.
Additionally, Derby said the country would be able to lure aircraft from all over the world to use that MRO.

Citing Hong Kong as an example, Derby said that the MRO business contributed to 17 per cent of that country's Gross Domestic Product.
An Airports Authority official who spoke to the Observer on condition of anonymity said that the maintenance unit, with its large hangar and over 100 certified mechanics, constitutes a major asset for the country.

"If the airline is divested this would be a facility that would just disappear overnight with its core of trained engineers and mechanics," he said.
The official further explained that in the 1990s when the decision was taken to outsource the heavy checks on Air Jamaica's aircraft to the United Kingdom, it could cost as much as US$400,000 in some instances.
"I have heard that when the aircraft went to England for these heavy checks some of our very mechanics who had left for overseas were the ones who worked on it," he said.

He explained that Air Jamaica's maintenance unit was just about rebuilding its capacity, following this mass exodus of mechanics who migrated to work overseas.

"Some of the best engineers were soaked up by overseas companies and they have not fully built that back up, and so we should not allow this asset to be lost, and all those people who have been trained on the job and overseas to just go," he said.

According to the official, this facility would not only service the current fleet of Airbus 300s but all others.

Air Jamaica's maintenance unit is said to be NMIA's largest tenant.
The MRO, he said, should be able to get enough business, given that Jamaica is the area for "technical stops'.

"Flights are received here all the time, whether from medical emergency or mechanical problems, because this is the preferred technical stop," he said.

These aircrafts are simply facilitated until other arrange-ments can be made