Argument149

TOPIC: ARGUMENT149 - The following is a memorandum from the director of personnel to the president of Get-Away Airlines.

"Since our mechanics are responsible for inspecting and maintaining our aircraft, Get-Away Airlines should pay to send them to the Quality-Care Seminar, a two-week seminar on proper maintenance procedures. I recommend this seminar because it is likely to be a wise investment, given that the automobile racing industry recently reported that the performance of its maintenance crews improved markedly after their crews had attended the seminar. These maintenance crews perform many of the same functions as do our mechanics, including refueling and repairing engines. The money we spend on sending our staff to the seminar will inevitably lead to improved maintenance and thus to greater customer satisfaction along with greater profits for our airline.
"WORDS: 410 TIME: 01:20:32 DATE: 2008-2-28 22:08:40

The statement presented fails to convince the conclusions with powerful reasoning, and makes improper comparisons to some extent. Mechanics working in Get-Away Airlines whether should be paid to be sent to join a two-week seminar or not remains a undecided problem. Also, rules that are regarded as golden ones in auto world may be useless in the realm of airline companies. The arguer's mistakes would easily be pinpointed after following three aspects are discussed.

First, Get-Away Airlines need not to send the mechanics to some seminar. People refueling and repairing engines in airlines are considered as high-level trained-already technicians in default when they come to airlines the first day. What they lack is right the practice, not theoretical knowledge. The arguer doesn't give details about the Quality-Care Seminar, so it couldn't be concluded that the crews' abilities would be improved after taking the seminar.To think about the lasting time of the Seminar, there is a probability that two weeks are not enough for training in the special field of aircraft in which advanced skill should be required, so the positive impacts may not be obvious.

Second, experiences accumulated in automobile racing should undoubtedly not be adopted in any other field, such as aircraft, without any changes. For instance, in Formula 1, a famous automobile racing, the crews are required to master the skills of refueling and changing tires as fast as possible, in order to save time and get a good place in the race. But in airlines, it is unnecessary to do repairs or refuel quickly on account of safety. A detailed time-consuming maintenance is far more critical than the speed of checking.

Last, even if the crews receive certain technique training, it remains a question whether greater profits will be gained in their financial report. Profits of an airline are mainly obtained from the sales of plane tickets rather than reducing the costs in maintaining planes which could be managed by sending mechanics to the seminar, because customers are communicating with sales, but not mechanics. The performances of sales are related to customer satisfaction much more directly than that of back workers.

Having taking these questions above into consideration, the arguer seems have lots of investigations to make before giving the conclusions. A deep insight of the functions of mechanics and the source of profits would be helpful in deciding whether sending crews to the Quality-Care Seminar. That is direction the arguer could walk forward to.