NYT editorial: Fear and Flying

[DeepModem Mom]

Fear and Flying
Published: April 11, 2008

If there can be any good news in hundreds of thousands of passengers being stranded as airlines ground fleets of planes for urgent inspection, it is that the Federal Aviation Administration is doing its job. Unfortunately, it is trying to make up for years of not doing its job in keeping them safe, and travelers are the victims.

If the F.A.A. had consistently monitored safety instead of being shamed into action last month by whistle-blowers and an angry Congress, the inspections might have been better scheduled or in some cases, even unnecessary. Now, the agency says that travel interruptions will be with us at least through June, depending on the results of its stepped-up safety audits....

The F.A.A.’s unacceptably laissez-faire system of safety enforcement is powerful evidence of the damage done by Ronald Reagan’s ideological campaign of deregulation. It came to light only when Southwest reported that it had missed inspections for fuselage cracks. That was bad enough, but it turned out that Southwest had flown the planes in question for nine months in 2006 and 2007. It was hit with an appropriately stiff civil penalty of $10.4 million.

The F.A.A. has been deferring in frightening ways to the airlines on safety inspections. The industry inspects itself, reporting its own safety lapses to ward off fines. The agency audits the companies’ paperwork, a task that has grown more complicated as airlines cut costs by outsourcing maintenance. The airlines were allowed to undercut audits they did not like by requesting reviews by upper-level federal managers who often seemed ready to ignore or forgive almost anything. Two courageous whistle-blowers told a Congressional committee that they were harassed for simply doing their jobs....

When a federal agency refers to the industry it oversees as its “customers,” as the F.A.A. did with the airlines, a boundary has been dangerously crossed. As Representative James Oberstar, the chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, rightly said last week: “The F.A.A.’s only customer is the air-traveling public.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/11/opinion/11fri1.html?hp

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. I'm putting my tinfoil hat on, now...

but I can't help thinking it a bit odd that the FAA seem to have dropped the ball in an especially negligent way with respect to two large airlines based in -- of all places -- Texas.

Or maybe that's just a coincidence.