The modern trend for many aviation businesses is to outsource non-core business activities. This can be good business.
Low cost carriers, for example, may outsource their aircraft maintenance, crew training, ground handling, even flight planning services. Airports may outsource maintenance, security, planning etc., whereas, maintenance organizations may outsource engineer training, component repairs, cleaning and other things which only a couple of decades ago were the direct responsibility of the aviation permission holder.
Civil aviation safety regulators are generally conservative, and rightly so, because they are seen to hold the key to financial success and or a safety catastrophe. The regulators have acknowledged the realities of rising costs, greater competition and reduced yield for aviation operators, and have developed legislation to permit out sourcing of various aviation activities. The catch however, is the notion that whilst a business may outsource the responsibility, it retains the accountability! In my experience, every business knows this but some (large and small), do not understand it!
There is a saying which is relevant and worth remembering; “Never outsource a mess.” Successful outsourcing is serious business, requiring comprehensive contracts, planning, sound polices, rigorous procedures, multi-dimensional monitoring and good stakeholder relationship management.
This effort costs money, and often, in my experience when money gets tight or a business becomes lazy, the effort from the business doing the outsourcing drops off in the reverse order; that is, good stakeholder management goes first, followed by, monitoring, procedures, policies etc., whilst the notion of it being ultimately accountable becomes a misty memory with the passage of time.
Aviation regulators are becoming increasing aware of this emerging business trait and are insisting on tighter business controls on activities being conducted by third parties. Rather being seen as an over-kill imposed on the operation, it is nothing more than good business!
If you want a good example of what can go wrong in an outsourcing situation, have a look at the Boeing 787 development and manufacturing project. Whilst not confessing to know all of the details of their situation, it would seem that the outsourcing model applied to such a technically ambitious project was, at best, difficult to manage.
Clearly, outsourcing to specialist third parties is here to stay in the aviation industry. Businesses considering it need to think carefully about how they assure themselves that the specified service or product is being and will be supplied consistently and to an appropriate quality standard. This may be an expensive exercise but it may prevent your leading edge business model from becoming a bleeding edge business!
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