Tulsa Regional Chamber, City of Tulsa, Tulsa County and other regional officials announce support for the American Airlines and U.S. Airways merger.
One community that is particularly pleased is Owasso.
The American Airlines and US Airways merger is good news for the City of Owasso.
“We have over 800 families in Owasso that work out at American Airlines,” said Mayor Doug Bonebrake. “This is going to probably give them a little bit of hope that things are going to be stable.”
He says the quality of the Tulsa workforce means that the maintenance base here could likely accommodate US Airways planes in the future.
“Even before the merger process was going on,” he said, “there was talk that perhaps the base could take on other planes from other airlines.”
“You’ve got to have a pretty good skill set, a good workforce to be able to handle that,” he said.
Tulsa’s Mayor Bartlett called for updating the city-owned facilities at the airport.
“We have facilities here in Tulsa that we need to address,” he said, “to make certain that they are attractive for all airplanes that are flying today.”
Bill Collins, American’s VP of Base Maintenance, spoke about what’s next for the companies.
“What we have in front of us is a period of time, for the next six months, to get the merger specifics completed,” he said.