AAR Reviews

Pros

Hired with no on the job experience. Willing to train a good student fresh out of school. Good training program.

Cons

Starting pay is not as much as I would have liked to start at. It seems that only second and third shifts are available.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep doing what the company is doing with molding new mechanics and take care of them once they progress into proficient mechanics.

Pros

A large and stable corporation that is focused on good markets, and offers good capabilities, good personnel, good work locations, and good compensation.

Cons

The Clearwater site offers poor work/life balance due to a lack of appreciation by site, divisional, and corporate management relative to their employees - the most important asset of all.

Advice to Senior Management

Completely review and restore employee relations. Remove managers who do not realize the importance of employees. Improve 1% 401K match. Ensure resources are carefully evaluated and established prior to taking on new business.

Pros

Good learning environment dependent on supervisor
Some valuable resources for networking in the industry
Good benefits package, good opportunities for people whom have high degree of ambition.

Cons

Bias towards gender in specific roles, focus more on educational background, less on work experience or skills. Little consideration in terms of social intelligence for work performance.

Advice to Senior Management

Consider all facets of employee skills set: educational experience, work experience, social aptitude, work ethic & performance. Individuality should be considered and appreciated and not group thinking mentality.

Pros

good benefits meaningful work. Fair pay.

Cons

Dysfunctional. Communications is non existent.

Advice to Senior Management

Need better communications

Pros

AAR has great pay and benefits. Safety is job 1

Cons

If you like to "fly under the radar" and not work then this place is not for you.

Pros

Easy to get hired. The pay was better than other companies.

Cons

There is no training. (FAA requires that) They don't explain how to do the job. Their supervisors treat you unfairly. They keep hiring people, even though most of the time, they have no aircrafts to work on. Very dishonest! They wait until you are about to become permanent, then fire you. It happened to at least 25 people while I was there. They don't give any excuses why. Most of the employees don't have an A&P License.

Advice to Senior Management

Your company will go under. There is too much dishonesty going around. Firing and hiring people constantly to save money is not going to work for long at all.

Pros

Easy to get hired. If you are looking to get in the door and work, they are in desperate need of bodies.

Cons

Upper management does not see communication as a two way street. Communication issues with suppliers, test houses, and customer. Test procedures unclear.

Advice to Senior Management

If you want to retain high quality engineering staff in a very rural location, it would be beneficial to treat them with respect and communicate.

Pros

The lack of strong business processes and policies can result in large responsibilities and quick promotions for the lucky.

Cons

Corporate management doesn't know what to do with the Cargo Systems division. Constant personnel changes in division management contributed to the firm's challenges in competence and business processes.

Advice to Senior Management

Reconsider the rationale behind your conglomerate. Several divisions seem to share little mutual competency.

Pros

The compensation is fair compared to similar jobs in the area.
They have made improvements to the facilities including implementing 5S and Six Sigma projects.

Cons

This site used to be a privately owned operation with a majority of the work force being employed there from ten to twenty plus years. It was sold to AAR Corp who left the structure as it was for the first year as is typical. Then the changes started, first to go were the President and VP ( not there choice ). Then the general manager left and took a large number of the experienced employees with him to his current employer. There have been several lay offs that took out most of the remaining employees with any seniority and they have thinned the work force on the floor to a point where they must operate two or three machines at a time. The replacement managers and engineers are usually hired at a higher pay rate than the people they replaced and most come from an automotive back ground, we see how they benefited the auto industry! The VP of operations is no exception, he is honestly one of the most arrogant people I have ever worked for. He has made numerous changes that leave you scratching your head and seems in constant conflict with those under him.

Advice to Senior Management

Advice to cooperate: take a look at whats going on before you have to close the doors in Huntsville.
Advice to local management: don't be afraid to trust the ones who have devoted most of there lives to this job, the ones that are left anyway.

Pros

You get a chance to sink your teeth in to really big programs right from the get-go, and gain experiene here that you could not get anywhere else

Cons

The often mandate over time or require you to travel internationallly on short notice. Sometime notice as short as 12 hours. They offer no compensation for travel or overtime, andwill sometimes book your trip for you befopre they even ask if you can go, to really put the pressure on you.

Advice to Senior Management

Get a handle on program management... You really need to build in this area of expertise. Learn how to manage the customer, understand contracts before signing up, learn how to schedule and track progress as opposed to mandating dates with no real plans to get there. Keep contingency plans at al times, because it is certain that at some point every program will experience some sort of change.