After 21 years of servicing wide-body aircraft for American Airlines, the Alliance Fort Worth maintenance base is closing.
The Fort Worth-based carrier announced the closure in February and initially planned to have it completely closed by the end of the year. As part of its restructuring, American decided to outsource more of its heavy maintenance work to third-party vendors, including HAECO in Hong Kong.
In December, American laid off about 250 workers that staffed the maintenance base. Of the 1,200 workers at the facility, most were able to move into other jobs within American or chose to take early retirement.
The 1.6-million-square-foot maintenance hangar first opened in 1991 with an iconic suspended roof that has no fixed columns holding it up. With its cantilever design, seven wide-body plans standing wingtip to wingtip can fit inside the facility's docks.
However, the base isn't completely closed yet. There are still some employees at Alliance working on aircraft components such as coffee pots. The component work is scheduled to move to hangars at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport but American has experienced construction delays as it prepares those hangars to accommodate the work. As a result, Alliance will remain partially open until the middle of 2013.
The carrier also continues to operate its joint venture with Rolls Royce, called TAESL, at Alliance where jet engines are overhauled for American and other airlines.
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