Flying the Oberstar Skies
April 11, 2008
Journal readers tend to get around, so there's a good chance that the person reading this editorial has been among the hundreds of thousands of travelers stuck on a tarmac or waylaid in a hotel by the recent wave of flight cancellations. And if you're wondering where to point the finger, we'd suggest Capitol Hill. Allow us to explain.
After the Federal Aviation Administration fined Southwest Airlines more than $10 million last month for inspection lapses, Congress rounded up the usual scapegoats for some hearings. FAA officials told the House Transportation Committee that the Southwest situation was "an isolated problem, not a systematic one." But James Oberstar, the Minnesota Democrat who chairs the panel, was unpersuaded.
![[James Oberstar]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/HC-GK197_Oberst_20070619202957.gif)
"It's clear we have a structural problem at the FAA," declared Mr. Oberstar, to nationwide headlines. "I fear that complacency may have set in at the highest levels of FAA management, reflecting a pendulum swing away from vigorous enforcement of compliance, toward a carrier-favorable, cozy relationship."
The regulators got the message and went into panic mode. As is wont with government bureaucracies like the FAA, it proceeded to swing the pendulum waaaay back in the other direction – and hasn't stopped. An industry-wide "audit" commenced, and FAA inspectors set about finding something – anything – awry with an aircraft to show Mr. Oberstar and other Congressional overseers that the agency was up to the job of enforcing federal maintenance requirements to the letter.
American cuts more flights; Fliers fume
By HARRY R. WEBER, AP Business Writer 1 hour, 12 minutes ago
ATLANTA - American Airlines grounded hundreds more flights Friday as the inspection-related mess frustrated passengers and hurt an industry already bleeding cash thanks to high fuel costs.
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Lawmakers were asking questions and some fed-up air travelers headed for trains. Others gave the airlines a pass, saying the companies were doing the best they could.
"If somebody's got a choice between being in a plane crash and being late, is there a choice?" Jane Bernard, a writer from New York who was delayed by at least three hours en route from LaGuardia Airport to Miami, said Thursday.
Mingo Valencia, a 60-year-old stuck at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport while heading home to Midland, Texas, wasn't so gracious.
"Poor management," he said bluntly.
Congress also weighed in Thursday. The Federal Aviation Administration official who ordered safety audits last month, Nicholas Sabatini, faced tough questions from a Senate subcommittee about the agency's lax oversight of airlines and his own accountability for recent breakdowns. The FAA noted that airlines had 18 months to check electrical wiring on MD-80 jets since an initial order was issued in September 2006.
American, a unit of Fort Worth, Texas-based AMR Corp., canceled another 595 flights Friday, bringing this week's total to nearly 3,100 due to safety inspections of its MD-80s. The carrier said disruptions will continue through Saturday as it works to comply with the federal safety order.
Alaska Airlines, Midwest Airlines and Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines Inc. joined the wave, each canceling a small number of flights on MD-80 aircraft Thursday.
At least 250,000 passengers have been affected by the American cancellations this week alone.
Other carriers like Continental Airlines Inc., JetBlue Airways Corp., AirTran Airways and Northwest Airlines Corp. said they passed the first round of FAA audits with a clean slate and did not expect extra maintenance work or flight delays. It was impossible to say whether that could change since the FAA is conducting another round of safety audits.
The cancellations come at a time of high fuel prices and mixed success among the major air carriers at getting domestic fare increases to stick. The fact that airplanes are flying very full is making it difficult for airlines that cancel flights to find empty seats on other carriers to rebook their passengers.
"This disruption is severe," said Webster O'Brien, an industry expert with aviation consulting firm Simat, Helliesen & Eichner. "People are going to be unhappy. There isn't going to be an easy way to walk everybody out of it."
3 comments:
The finger should not be pointed at Congress, it should be pointed at the FAA.
At the core of this problem is an "Airworthiness Directive" issued by the FAA in 2006 that advised the airlines of a wirign problem in MD-80s. That Airworthiness Directive (or AD) was the result of an incident where the wiring in the front wheel well of a MD-80 overheated, began smoking and smoke filled the cockpit during flight. The plane was able to land safely with no injuries.
ALL of the airlines interpreted the AD the same way: compliance was not required. It was the FAA's fault that it did not demand compliance earlier (or tell the airlines their interpretation was incorrect). But the FAA's call for immediate compliance seem to be akin to that of a petulant child who is upset for being rapped on the knuckles by a teacher and takes it out on someone else.
Funny how Southwest started all this with cracked wing inspections not being done. They didn't cancel a bunch of flights. BUT American and the rest get hamered over repairs they did two weeks ago. A lot of the gripes have to do with the color of the plastic zip ties, the direction that they are zipped, and they have to be exactly 1 inch apart. All to prevent chaffing which takes years to become even a remote problem.
what i'm hearing is that this Oberstar guy thinks the FAA is too chummy with the Airlines and giving them too much slack. Like Ice said, the airlines are taking some "directives" as "advisories" and the FAA didn't mind for most things until Oberstar started dragging everyone up to capital hill because of SAFETY. all this while we are in the midst of one of the safest periods of operation of aircraft in the history of this commercial aviation. There hasn't been an incident with loss of life since November 2001. I think the Airlines and FAA were probably doing things more or less right, but Mr. Congressman wants the beaurocracy to get tougher. I hope the people in his district toss him out on his a$$
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