Is it just me, or is change on the horizon?

mshunter

Well-Known Member
It seems to me, that with the letter Skiles (I think thats Suly's right hand man's name) wrote to USA today, the NTSB, the FAA and all the other scuttlebutt going on in the airline industry right now that a change may be on the horizon;good or bad. Any thoughts?

Debate....
 
What letter?

Change? No, not until we begin to take aviation safety seriously instead of short-term quarterly financial results.
 
This excerpt from the May 21st 2009 edition of AvWeb leads me to believe change is coming.


[FONT=arial,helvetica,geneva]Congress Pushes For More Oversight Of Regional Airlines[/FONT]

byrondorgan.jpg
Four senators have asked the Transportation Department Office of Inspector General to investigate safety enforcement at regional airlines, the Associated Press reported this week. Also, Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., chairman of the aviation subcommittee of the Commerce Committee, said he will hold a series of hearings, starting June 10, to investigate the issues. "The disclosures about crew rest, compensation, training, and many other issues demonstrate the urgent need for Congress and the FAA to take actions to make certain the same standards exist for both commuter airlines and the major carriers," Dorgan said. "The NTSB investigation has disclosed some very serious problems that need to be corrected immediately."

The issue was also raised Tuesday during confirmation hearings for Randy Babbitt, President Barack Obama's nominee to head the FAA. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., met with Babbitt just before the hearing, and told the AP that Babbitt said he will look into the FAA's regulation of pilot work hours at regional airlines. "I told him it seems to me they underpay and overwork their pilots," Schumer said. "He said he would look at it all. He said he was passionate about pilot fatigue." Other senators signing the letter to the OIG were Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and Jim DeMint, R-S.C.
 
What letter?

Change? No, not until we begin to take aviation safety seriously instead of short-term quarterly financial results.


The letter is in USA today.

Edit: I have no aspirations to do the 121 thing, exclusivly because of pay. Even if it does change, I still don't want to do 121. But for the better of the entire industry, I hope it does.
 
Senator Hutchison, from Texas, is one of the nice folks in Washington that works for me.

She'll be getting a letter along with my representative and my other senator very soon.

Funny, though. All the talk of change, and better oversight, and whatnot...
It's important that we note a few points in history when we consider what we all contribute individually.

I remember in 2007, everybody thought the ALPA vote at Colgan would be a landslide victory. I remember standing there with a member of the OC, both of us slack-jawed.. when we found out the vote had failed by four. FOUR! Why? Too many people believed that enough other people were doing something about it- it wasn't something they had to worry about.

Then today, I got my issue of ALPA's rag- 'Airline Pilot'. Capt. Prater's letter starts rather pointedly with a quote of John F. Kennedy-

Kennedy once said, "Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but eache of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation."

I really could not have said it much better, no matter how I tried.

None of us here may really be great enough to change history on own own, but together we can. Let's do something now before the opportunity passes. It's not up to SOME Of us, it's up to ALL of us.

Remember, those who stand for nothing will accomplish nothing.
 
It seems to me, that with the letter Skiles (I think thats Suly's right hand man's name) wrote to USA today, the NTSB, the FAA and all the other scuttlebutt going on in the airline industry right now that a change may be on the horizon;good or bad. Any thoughts?

Debate....

I think it's a time of great opportunity.

Two choices:

1. We can get the message out, while all the chum's out in the water and try to get some positive change.

2. We could sit around on the aviation internet, clasp our hands together and complain about how nothing's going to change and how we're all going in to real estate, nay nursing, or was it adult video, I don't know.

We're all going to end up flying part 121 as passengers at some point, so it's something to think about.
 
Its about time. Personally, I'm in favor of re-regulation. Airline deregulation has proven to be an abject failure.
 
Its about time. Personally, I'm in favor of re-regulation. Airline deregulation has proven to be an abject failure.

Only because the legacies didn't adapt to the new de-regulated market. Instead they tried to move on as normal which proved a big failure. Southwest on the other hand was able to succeed with their much better business model.
 
I think you're leaving out the 'double whammy' when we deregulated and then shifted the FAA from a supervisory/regulatory function to a agency that tied the hands of established carriers and gave new entrants carte blanche.

Like if "Carrier A" flew SAN to MCI and charged $400. "Carrier B" could enter the market and charge, say, $200. When "Carrier A" dropped their fares to $189, "Carrier B" would scream blood murder and "predatory pricing".

I'm not a proponent of full regulation, but we're going to have to bring back some balance to the industry. It's preposterous how the government bent over backwards to enable a foreign-owned carrier (Virgin America) to fly point-to-point in the US. How in the world, pun intended, does a domestic US carrier compete against a foreign-entrant with vast international resources and 'closed books'?
 
You're right - there is a change on the horizon that you can't see. Unfortunately it's a waterfall and we're floating towards it.
 
Back
Top