I found an interesting and sobering article in Business Week that talks about fatal airline flights, and other hazards of regional airlines. We focus a lot of energy on the safety of our larger airlines, but don’t give a lot of thought to smaller, regional ones.
Issues of pilot training, what planes are allowed to fly, where the parts come from, how the pilots are treated, and what they are paid all factor in to risks which most of us, if aware, would find untenable.
Pilots for regionals are often less experienced than those who fly for the majors and are forced to work more-grueling schedules, says U.S. Senator Mark Begich, a Democrat from Alaska who sits on the Aviation Subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee.
Regional companies handled more than 158 million passengers in 2008, according to the Washington-based Regional Airline Association. Regional flights usually bear the names of their major airline partners.
That leaves many passengers unaware that the planes they fly on — and the pilots who command them — may not match the safety standards of the airline whose name they see on their tickets, Begich says.
The last five fatal crashes of commercial passenger carriers in the U.S. involved planes operated by regional airlines, according to the NTSB.
Major airlines contract out to regionals to lower their expenses by getting around union agreements, says Captain Paul Rice, first vice president of the Air Line Pilots Association, the world’s largest pilot union, with about 53,000 members.
Ah yes, those pesky union agreements…
“The way the industry is structured is that management will go out and find a new airline and start siphoning off the business to whoever will fly for cheaper,” says Rice, 52, a pilot at United for 23 years.
“The American public is only just starting to wake up to that,” Rice says. “What they are buying is the lowest-cost operation that’s available.”
Just like I don’t want a discount brain surgeon, or someone who’s wiring my house for cheap cheap cheap, I think I’d prefer an airline pilot who is paid more, sleeps more, is trained better, and is happy with his job.
I’d also like one who can afford to live near the airport he works from, and can sleep in his own bed before he flies me and my family around the globe.
Before operating a plane, they often sleep in crew lounges or at so-called crash pads, temporary apartments where as many as six pilots share a bedroom. Former Colgan pilot Preusser lived full time in a crash pad in Albany, New York, in 2007.
He says he slept on an air mattress and shared a room with three or four people. One pilot slept in a walk-in closet, he says. Many regional pilots can’t afford meals and keep track of which hotels offer free continental breakfasts, Preusser says.
Preusser says he remembers falling asleep in the cockpit while piloting a 50-seat Embraer RJ145. He had been on standby and was assigned at the last minute to fly a 7 p.m. flight from Dallas to Cincinnati.
I’m glad that one of my own Senators has this one on his radar, as it were.
The FAA and federal government have failed to ensure that regional airlines are as safe as their major partners, says Begich, whose father died in a 1972 charter plane crash.
The Senate has held six hearings on aviation safety in recent months, and two more on the reauthorization of the FAA who promised to introduce new, more stringent regulations about pilot flight hours. This promise came after a fatal crash in New York State early in the year where a pilot may have pulled the nose up after a stall warning, instead of putting it down to increase speed. 49 passengers were killed.
The new regulations were supposed to kick in today. Now, the FAA says the rules will change in the coming year. Until that happens passengers will continue to be subjected to risks they may not even be thinking about. Time to rethink whether “cheap” should be the first factor in buying airline tickets.
Until the FAA steps up, passengers traveling on commuter flights will be left wondering whether buying a cheaper ticket will continue to mean bargaining away their safety.
The entire article is worth a read.
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