How do they work around visa requirements for visiting engineers? Wouldn't that lead to few days worth of delay at least? They mention New Delhi in the article - Americans require visas to visit India.
Most countries can fast track a visa if there is enough money on the line for someone.
Before I had kids, I did pretty much the same thing for a supplier of offshore handling equipment - seismic survey, oceanography, ROVs, that kind of thing. On more than one occasion we were sent out with tickets only to some major hub in the general vicinity of where we were going, giving the back office a few more hours to figure out how to have a visa or a waiver issued by the time we got to the hub.
Whenever possible, we had work visas issued in advance for most countries we were likely to visit - oh, and a pair of passports to ensure, uh, incompatible visas didn't end up in the same passport.
(An Iranian immigration officer once chucklingly suggested that if he could offer me just one bit of professional advice, it would be to NOT go to the US on the passport currently on his desk - with visas to Iran, Libya and Algerie, to name but a few...)
If it's a national carrier or a major airline, I think they can probably contact people high enough in the government that visa issues will be quickly resolved. If Air India is losing 200k a day because of a plane being inoperable, I suspect that they can get the Indian government to expedite any visas and allow people to legally stay long enough to fix the plane. Anyone on Boeing's team is probably really low risk in terms of overstaying their visa illegally or committing some heinous crime.
Heck, airlines can do that just for dumb passengers.
I was (attempting to) check in for my NZ to Australia flight on Emirates, and had totally forgotten Americans required a visa to enter Australia. They called ahead and got me a visa on arrival - all I had was a piece of scrap paper with a number written on it that I redeemed at the other end.
It worked out for you because USA - Australia visa requirements are pretty lax. Generally speaking, developed countries have relaxed (or no) visa requirements for each other. Had you been traveling to say China, India, or basically any global south country, it wouldn't have worked out.
Yep, definitely American privilege making up for American bad assumptions. I have reliably gotten my visa requirements right the rest of the time across said global South.
They also mention filled passports in the article. One assumes there's a team at Boeing whose job it is to ensure each increment comes as smoothly and quickly as possible.
I don’t think that’s an option generally speaking. You’d still need to go through security to get the the authorized worker area to be checked again and passes issued. It’s not like you can just bust open a door and jump out to the tarmac without some sort of pass and ID
The initial assessment team is probably flown in as crew. Those are exempt from visa requirements.
The full repair team with equipment and parts definitely needs to get through customs (but there are import duty exceptions for airplane spare parts in international treaties), and get visa arranged etc.
Before I had kids, I did pretty much the same thing for a supplier of offshore handling equipment - seismic survey, oceanography, ROVs, that kind of thing. On more than one occasion we were sent out with tickets only to some major hub in the general vicinity of where we were going, giving the back office a few more hours to figure out how to have a visa or a waiver issued by the time we got to the hub.
Whenever possible, we had work visas issued in advance for most countries we were likely to visit - oh, and a pair of passports to ensure, uh, incompatible visas didn't end up in the same passport.
(An Iranian immigration officer once chucklingly suggested that if he could offer me just one bit of professional advice, it would be to NOT go to the US on the passport currently on his desk - with visas to Iran, Libya and Algerie, to name but a few...)