Airline Safety

PREV 2 of 2

As the amount of outsourcing skyrockets—outside firms now perform about two-thirds of airline maintenance—the F.A.A. is falling further behind. Scovel said that airlines don't have to identify their outside contractors, and some work is being done by shops and mechanics that aren't F.A.A. certified. "Without some form of verification, F.A.A. cannot be assured that air carriers have provided accurate and complete information," Scovel warned.

The Fatigue Factor
Everyone and everything involved with flying—pilots, flight attendants, mechanics, and even the planes themselves—are exhausted. Once again, cost cutting is the culprit. After years of airline budget cuts and downsizing, the surviving flight crews and mechanics work longer hours than ever. Fatigue and jet lag mean that employees aren't operating at peak efficiency. And aircraft that used to fly just a few hours a day now operate for 12 or even 16 hours a day, leaving little ground time for repairs.

The fatigue factor reached a frightening crescendo last month in Hawaii. A Go jet flying the 214-mile route between Honolulu and the Big Island overshot the Hilo airport by 15 miles. Air-traffic controllers were unable to reach the flight crew on the radio for about 25 minutes. The F.A.A.'s suspicion: Both the pilot and the co-pilot were literally asleep at the wheel.

Out-of-Control Air-Traffic Control
The government-operated air-traffic-control system is overworked, understaffed, outdated, and being ripped apart by internal dissent. Endless streams of reports from the Government Accountability Office (Congress' investigative arm) and the National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates accidents, have reached the same conclusion: The F.A.A. has bungled much-needed upgrades of its 1950s-era computers, employs too few controllers, and overworks its staff.

One tragic example is the 2006 Comair flight that killed 49 people when it took off from the wrong runway in Lexington, Kentucky. (Comair is owned by Delta Air Lines.) A subsequent investigation revealed that members of the flight crew had outdated maps and were working on short rest. Why didn’t the air-traffic controllers catch the errors before disaster struck? There was only one controller on duty instead of the required two, and he was working on two hours of sleep.

Meanwhile, it's estimated that controllers are retiring at three times the expected level, because senior staffers—most of whom were hired after President Reagan fired striking workers in 1981—object to a new, unilaterally imposed contract that cuts their pay and imposes a picayune set of work rules.

Does any of this distressing news mean you should cancel your next flight and cower behind your desk? Of course not. But it does mean it's okay to be worried.

As my wife says, flying is a miracle anyway.

The Fine Print...
One more thing to worry about: Pilot pay has been slashed so drastically that airlines can't find qualified candidates to fly commuter aircraft, the entry-level flying job. With pay for commuter flights starting not far above minimum wage (some pilots have left to drive trucks), airlines are hiring pilots with as little as 500 hours of flight experience. That's about half the old minimum requirement.

PREV 2 of 2