Tulsa Metro Chamber and regional partners react to American Airlines restructuring plan

2.2.2012
The American Airlines family has always been a great partner in the Tulsa community. It is important we come together to support the community's largest employer through the challenging restructuring process. We are thankful this first restructuring step will allow the Tulsa base to remain open and retain a large number of existing jobs.
 
We realize some of our friends and neighbors will ultimately be affected by the difficult decisions that will be made in the near future, including the elimination of some positions. We will aggressively market our valued aerospace facilities and highly-skilled regional workforce to prepare for work that could ultimately be outsourced during this restructuring.

Even still, the plan American Airlines has outlined today is an effort to retain as many jobs as possible. While any job cuts will be painful, we are confident the company will work towards the best outcome for the most number of people in the Tulsa region. In the meantime, the Chamber and our regional partners will intensely focus our resources toward the present and future economic and human well-being of any displaced workers and their families.

The Chamber is in regular contact with officials at American Airlines corporate and MRO - Tulsa. The Chamber, together with Gov. Mary Fallin, the Oklahoma Department of Commerce, City of Tulsa, Tulsa County, N.E. Oklahoma legislative delegation and Oklahoma's legislative leadership, area mayors, area municipalities, chambers of commerce, counties and Oklahoma's congressional delegation will continue to pledge our support as the reorganization progresses.


Aerospace as a target industry
Through its privately funded, five-year economic development plan, Tulsa's Future, the Chamber focuses efforts on target industries - those most concentrated in the Tulsa region with the greatest growth potential. Aerospace is one of these industries. The Chamber has a full-time aerospace industry professional serving as director of the aerospace/aviation development tasked with strengthening retention, expansion and recruitment of Tulsa-area aerospace companies and identifying areas of improvement to make the region more attractive to relocating aerospace businesses. Aerospace is the only target industry represented with a full-time Chamber staff person.

Education and workforce services
The Chamber's workforce program focuses on retaining, attracting and growing the skilled workers needed by regional companies. We dedicate resources, including ChooseTulsaJobs.com, to connect local workers to good opportunities while also linking our employment base to training options. The chamber will convene the local workforce system to assist displaced workers with other opportunities in this community. The Chamber convenes area education providers such as Tulsa Community College, Tulsa Tech, Spartan and university engineering programs to collaborate on aerospace-specific employee training.


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