At last a subject on O-Club I can claim some knowledge, for most of my working life I was involved in airline maintenance. With the caveat, that I have been out of the trade, with regret, for some ten years. However my brother in an Engineer with Aer Lingus so I am still in touch. I now work for a medical device company who thinks quality can be enforced by threats of disciplinary action.
I saw it from both sides, as an employee of an airline subsidiary who took in third party work and as an airline who sub-contracted.
I echo what Bodhi and Toad said. I worked for the engine overhaul facility of Aer Lingus. It's now owned by Lufthansa. Aer Lingus did it's own maintenance much like Delta or United or BA but they also took in outside work. But that side got so big they set up subsidiaries to cater for demand.
In my case it was a stand alone company with none of the salaries and benefits of the main airline. In effect they were sub contracting their own maintenance to a subsidiary and trying to attract business from other airlines. We had customers from all over the world. Usually airlines too small to have in house maintenance. Virgin, Wardair, Presidential Airlines, Iraqi Airways, Nigeria, Thai etc etc even the United States Air Force.
Aircraft manufacturers really do little maintenance work. It's not cost effective for them. They support Maintenance Repair Organisations (MROs). Usually they have an representative permanently based on site. We had a Pratt & Whitney rep and a CFM rep.
There is a lot of sub-contracting. These days only a few carriers like the Asian one you mentioned have in house maintenance. This can extend to ramp checks where the Engineers meeting and despatching the aircraft are not employees of the airline. This applied to Aer Lingus (EI) at one stage, although ironically the company used was a spin off of the Aer Lingus MRO which was sold to FLS. So the staff were actually ex Aer Lingus. There was a point where some EI aircraft were met by EI employees and others by ex employees. But eventually it was realised that the EI engineers did a better job for less cost, so now it's all in house. But all other maintenance is sub contracted.
Even the ruthlessly capitalist Ryanair, keeps a corps of maintenance engineers for ramp work. They know that employees will always do a better job than sub contractors even if the sub contractor used to be an employee. For example if an aeroplane breaks down somewhere in Europe. It is a lot cheaper and better to put a couple of in house A&E's on the next plane out than it is to hire someone from another maintenance organisation of uncertain skillsets and abilities. My brother gets quite a few sudden trips overseas like that. As Toad says, 'pride counts for a lot'.
That is not to say that outsourcing work neccessarily means a lowering of standards as is sometimes implied, particularly in the USA. Aviation is highly regulated industry no matter where you go and no MRO can afford to get a reputation for bad work, quite simply because there are many rivals ready to step in. My company was under the scrutiny of the Irish Aviation Authority, the British, Americans, Canadians, Thailand etc. The same applies elsewhere in the world. In fact as often as not, although the maintenance can be cheaper, the quality of work can in fact be higher than in house. MRO's in Asia and Europe operate to just as high standards as in the USA.
Aviation is one of the few industries left where there is a vestige of the old style camradery and pride in your company remains. I remember when we had a technical issue. We would often phone our rival and ask them how they did it and vice versa. Imagine Hewlett Packard calling Microsoft
In truth one of the biggest problems we had in my company was a tendency to 'gold plate' work. If an engine was sent in for light refurbishment, it would practically get almost the same as a full refurbishment. This had a disastrous effect on turn around times and profitability.
In terms of Industrial relations. I only know about Aer Lingus. Aer Lingus set up an engine facility away from the airport but the airframe maintenance subsidiary was simply renamed 'Team Aer Lingus'. In effect the staff retained all the benefits of working for the airline although technically it was a separate company. The unions fearing a future sell off, demanded what came to be known as 'letters of comfort'. In effect they demanded the right to come back to Aer Lingus proper if the subsidiary was ever sold off. That came to pass when it was finally sold to FLS. Some were bought off but some insisted on returning to Aer Lingus even when in reality there were no jobs for them. Some ended up as baggage handlers on less money much to their disgust.
Actually the more I write, the more I realise how big a topic this is. You have your work cut out for you, Dowding my friend.
I would suggest, unless you have already done this, you put a question on PPRuNe in the Engineers and Technicians forum on the same topic. But wear a tin hat, it can get very hot and heavy in PPRuNE these days.
