Published: April 17, 2008 07:29 pm            

Don’t risk safety of airline passengers

The dreadful experience of airline passengers in the last few days didn’t develop overnight. The cancellation of thousands of commercial flights was the product of a perfect storm of bad practices and long-term trends consisting of spotty federal regulation, faulty compliance by the airlines and an aging fleet of planes. It was a long time coming and will take a long time to fix, but some steps can be taken right away to avoid another nightmare for travelers.

Unlike the issue of how airlines treat their customers — a matter of convenience — the chaos in air traffic last week involves something more critical: passenger safety. This is harder to fix because the problems are more complicated and the repairs are more expensive. Yet it is also easier, because it does not necessarily require new laws. But it does require the Federal Aviation Administration to exercise its regulatory authority more effectively and to stop coddling the airlines.

In testimony before Congress earlier this month, an FAA inspector said he had been told by supervisors to ignore safety violations by Southwest Airlines. The hearings produced criticism of the “customer service” initiative launched in 2003 that gave airlines much more latitude when it came to inspections and produced a cozy relationship between the FAA and the industry it was supposed to monitor.

The theory was that giving airlines a greater say in safety inspections would produce “self disclosure” and prevent minor problems from turning into disasters. The fact that there has not been a major U.S. airline crash since November of 2001 is cited as proof that this policy worked.

Some airlines went too far, though. Southwest, despite an excellent safety record, flew more than 1,000 flights with airliners that had cracks in the fuselage. This disclosure had a snowball effect. It led to doubts about airline compliance and provoked audits that, in turn, produced last week’s massive cancellations. Much of it could have been avoided by more effective monitoring by the FAA.

A separate problem: the age of the fleet. Older airplanes need more maintenance. Outsourcing the work reduces costs. According to congressional testimony, about two-thirds of maintenance work is outsourced (compared to half that much a decade ago), and much of the work is sent overseas. But the FAA has not moved swiftly to monitor the contractors, leading to relaxed scrutiny.

High fuel costs and other factors have put a huge squeeze on airlines. But passenger safety should be the No. 1 priority. The absence of a major disaster since 2001 is a record the airlines can be proud of. Together, the airlines and the FAA must do whatever is necessary to continue that record.

— The Miami Herald

        

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