“Had the city of Tulsa and Tulsa County and the voters of our community not made the investments they’ve made in the American facilities over the last 20 or so years, American would not be here today,” Neal said, adding, “American will certainly not be here in the future if we do not continue to upgrade our facilities.”
“These are city-owned facilities,” Neal said. “It’s the city’s obligation to continue to upgrade the facilities and continue to support them in continuing to meet the future needs of their company as things change. As their fleets change, as the aircraft they fly change, as things … change within the industry.”
Continuing coverage: Read more on American Airlines in Tulsa here.
On Wednesday, Tulsa Metro Chamber President and CEO Mike Neal said the taxpayer support of the maintenance facility helped keep it on the board during American’s restructuring, but he also indicated more investment will probably be needed.
Tulsa and the state have invested heavily in American:
- In 2007, then-Gov. Brad Henry approved appropriating $10 million from the state’s Opportunity Fund, which contains surplus state money that is used to create jobs, for new facilities for American and Spirit AeroSystems.
- Mayor Kathy Taylor paired $5.7 million of the state funds with $4.3 million in local funds to build American the 81,400-square-foot widebody Hangar 80 at Tulsa International Airport. The remainder of the state money, $4.3 million, was used to rehabilitate an aircraft building for Spirit.
- In addition, in 2003 taxpayers approved $22.3 million in Vision 2025 funds. The Vision 2025 money was used by the company to purchase tooling and test equipment, including a $2 million avionics testing device.
But the investments and $1.62 billion a year in wage and benefit concessions agreed to by American’s unionized mechanics, pilots and flight attendants in 2003 to help AMR avoid a bankruptcy filing have not been enough, company and industry officials said.
“We’ve got to continue to look for ways to make investments in those facilities to, No. 1, support maintaining American here and then, hopefully, to support the company’s future growth,” Neal said.
