, however, guarantee a good standard of competence and the mechanics at the smaller repair facilities are not typically paid as well as those working for the larger stations or an airline's in house maintenance facility. This sometimes tends to lend itself to a higher incidence of unsatisfactory maintenance jobs and could result in shoddy workmanship, thus increasing the likelihood of an accident. This is particularly true of facilities that are servicing older aircraft where the inspections and maintenance are more critical. The possibility that the repair facility has the ability and knowledge to work on a wide number of aircraft is slim and this brings up the possibility that the facility may not do as good a job on some types of aircraft that it has a limited amount of experience on. Southwest Airlines sends over fifty percent of its maintenance business to a FAR Part 145 repair facility. They defend their actions by pointing out that one of the best ways to insure safety and security in the maintenance programs is to develop and maintain a solid relationship with the repair facility. They state that they are in the business of carrying passengers and that is where their expertise and efforts are dedicated. They leave the maintenance issues to a professional facility where maintenance and repairs are their primary business. They are happy with the results of their decision to outsource their maintenance and their safety record seems to bear this out. They use a large facility that employs a large number of mechanics and this is undoubtably one of the reasons for their success. Other, smaller airlines don't have the resources to use facilities such as these and they are forced to trade off quality for price. This is not always so. Simply paying more does not insure quality work. There are airlines that work very hard to insure a good relationship with their maintenance facility and manage to maintain a good service and safety program...
