Plane Conversations

A couple of months ago, my son announced that he “needed” this particular red sweatshirt.  It was absolutely vital that he have it.  In fact, civilization as we know it might actually end, should he not get this shirt.  Since I know that he has a closet full of sweatshirts, albeit none of them red, I didn’t see this as a crisis of need, more like a crisis of want.  In the interest of saving civilization, I told him that we could pick that up on our next trip to the mall; however, he would need to pay for it out of money he’d earned.  Hold the phones!  Money he’d earned?!  Magically, the crisis evaporated; the sweatshirt was no longer needed.  Civilization was saved.

Last week, US Airways CEO Doug Parker announced that maybe the airlines don’t need the NextGen ATC system they’ve been clamoring for.  ATW Online quotes Parker as saying at the carrier’s media day in Phoenix,”There is not a capacity issue in the United States right now as it relates to air traffic control, so putting in place NextGen ATC, while it makes all the sense in the world, isn’t going to save the airlines dramatic amounts. . .So our position is so long as we have to pay for [flight deck equipment], we prefer not to have it.”  And a recent Washington Post editorial indicates that US Airways is not alone in it’s unwillingness to foot the bill to retrofit their fleets with the necessary equipment.  In a rebuttal to the editorial, the Air Transport Association’s James May says that the article misses the point, that airlines are already paying billions in taxes into the Airport and Airway Trust Fund and that the FAA is the one who will realize multiple millions in savings; so, the government should be the one to pay for aircraft upgrades.

The logic eludes me on this one.  Why should the government pay to upgrade a private asset, even if the upgrade is to allow the asset to communicate with a government infrastructure?  The funds in the Airport and Airway Trust Fund won’t cover the costs of building, launching and maintaining all of the satellites required for the improved ATC system.  Personnel retraining, alone, is going to be a massive government expense.  In the end, overall savings will eventually cover these costs.  The airlines have lobbied for NextGen implementation saying that the more direct routes will reduce fuel costs, allow for better fleet utilization and, perhaps even reduce the number of ATC delays, allowing the scheduled airlines to operate more efficiently.  They should, therefore, be able to operate more profitably.  May doesn’t believe that airlines should pay for decreased government costs, but he somehow thinks it makes sense to require that the government (or better yet, general aviation through user fees) should have to pay for decreased airline costs?  Again, I fail to see the logic.

Interestingly, the Washington Post editorial points out that, in 2007, Southwest Airlines was the first carrier to commit to using its own money to retrofit its aircraft and that more than 60% of their fleet will be NextGen ready within the next few weeks.  Who has more credibility here - US Airways, a carrier that has lost money hand over fist for the past several years or Southwest Airlines, a carrier that has used innovative practices to turn a profit during the same time period?

Whether it’s a teen-ager, a corporation, or a government, it’s always easy to spend other people’s money.  You can easily measure commitment to a belief or project when you see how many of their own resources an entity is willing to use to see it through.

In this case, it looks like only the airlines that are interested in operating even smarter are the ones that are already the most profitable.

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We recently posted an article on the new pilot duty rules that will address pilot fatigue issues. Hopefully, the Obama administration will take the politics out of it and focus purely on safety. That remains to be seen as they have involved the Presidents Office of Management and Budgeting in the process which, in my opinion, should be left up to the safety and flight operations experts in the industry and the FAA.  

I asked our Director of Fight Operations, Dwayne McMurry, to weigh in on the subject. He has been a pilot operating under Far 135 (Air Charter Rules) for 25 plus years and has served in a management capacity for FAR 135 operations with our company for close to 20 years. Dwayne holds an ATP with 8000 plus flight hours and type ratings in Learjet, Lear 45, Cessna 650 and 525, and Beechcraft BE300.  He continues to fly as a Captain and manages the flight operations for our company; so, he has perspective from both management and pilot viewpoints.

Here are Dwayne’s thoughts about the issue of duty time and pilot fatigue:

For the most part, regulations today only regulate what a flight crewmember does while on duty.  Rules for drug and alcohol use are in place regulating one’s actions outside of a duty period; so, they ultimately affect the periods during company duty assignments.  To my knowledge, there is no pre departure test that can be administered that indicates the level of rest a pilot has received.  

No set of regulations will ever eliminate fatigue in the cockpit.  Mitigation of fatigue starts with the pilot.  This should be complemented by a set of reasonable regulations.   A pilot should be professional and understand that he/she must present themselves well-rested, ready and able to perform all duties associated with fight, in both mind and body.  Does this mean commuting across the nation within 24 hours of a flight should be prohibited?   Maybe; maybe not.  What is the difference between commuting across the country, then reporting to work, or returning home on a flight across the country from a vacation and reporting to work the next morning for a flight?  It’s not about the commute.  It’s about the rest needed before flight. 

Then the big question becomes: what is rest?  Time away from the job is not necessarily rest.  I’ve heard more than one person say they had to come back to work after a vacation in order to get some rest.

Commuting … There are several stresses involved when a pilot commutes to work.  The pilots that commute know all too well that the airlines they fly are sometimes unreliable.  They are often late, sometimes flights are canceled, and, quite frequently, they are full or overbooked.  A pilot riding Space Available is typically placed in a state of stress hours if not days before ever reporting to work.   What time do I have to leave to catch a flight in order to make it to work and how soon before I have to fly will I arrive?  Can I get on a particular flight; will it be on time?  What if I can’t get on the flight; is there an alternate flight I can take?  What do I do if all my plans fail?  These are all questions that may go through the mind of a commuting pilot.  Needless to say, if he doesn’t make it to work, his job may be on the line.  A pilot may leave early enough, even a day before he/she is scheduled to fly, but by doing so could bring on stress because of the added burden placed on him/her by their spouse because they aren’t home.  It all adds up. And may I add that this will only get more stressful as airline load factors rise with the reduction in capacity of the system. When load factors exceed 80% the reliability of getting to work on your own airline is going to become increasingly risky.

The crutches we lean on ….I’ve heard several comments lately from other flight crewmembers as to how they combat fatigue.  Snacking, energy drinks, coffee, naps haveall been suggested to combat fatigue during a flight or a series of flights.  These really don’t combat fatigue; they simply mask it.  Before the flight, plenty of rest and nutritious food seem to be a reasonable preventative measure for fatigue.  Another crutch seldom mentioned is technology.  In today’s modern aircraft, the technology we have at our disposal relieves the fatigue of having to hand fly the aircraft, shoot instrument approaches, calculate performance, diagnose and solve system malfunctions.  We have more information at our disposal in the way of weather reporting, airport information, communications and automated aircraft systems monitoring than ever before.  When used properly, it all reduces fatigue during flight. 

Some of the things CFM does to mitigate fatigue ….We require our pilots to live within 45 minutes of the airport.  Fatigue from commuting is not an issue with us.  We fly 99% of all our operations with two crewmembers.  This reduces the workload associated with a flight, thus reducing fatigue.  We plan all our trips to begin and end within a 14-hour period.  We are realistic in our scheduling.  We consider that a pilot who has been on duty from 10 pm to 6 am may not be rested and ready to report for duty at 4pm that day even though he/she is legal to do so.  We provide day rooms for our crews during long days.  We provide a full staff of personnel including maintenance, dispatch and management, which are available to the pilot anytime to assist in the decision making process.  We are aware that major life changes such as the birth of a child have an effect on a crewmember’s performance,;so, we try to be flexible when it comes to these events with time off.  Ultimately, we give the pilot the final say in determining whether he/she is rested and ready to fly, even when the regulations say they are legal to fly. 

I appreciate Dwayne’s input from a professional pilot and flight department manager’s perspective.  

As I have stated in previous posts, I am a free market capitalist and believe the government needs to stay out of the way in most areas of business such as legislating whether you can charge for carry on bags. That is a market issue that needs to be left up to the airlines and their customers. Nobody gets hurt if Spirit Airlines charges a fee for carry on baggage.  However, when it comes to regulations of our industry that center on safety, the government needs to provide well thought out regulations that are evenly enforced across the industry. We are operating on a 60-year-old set of rules that are vague in their wording and no longer adequately address safety and the issue of pilot fatigue. The technology and capabilities of today’s aircraft and the air transportation system make this a new day and the new day needs a new and better set of rules. The pilots and traveling public deserve no less.   

What do you have to say about this?

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Andy Paztor of the Wall Street Journal in an April 22 Article writes:

“Reducing pilot fatigue is a top priority for U.S. airline regulators. But new rules are being delayed by disagreements within the Obama administration over whether the anticipated safety improvements would justify the cost to airlines.

When U.S. Federal Aviation Administration chief Randy Babbitt last summer launched a drive to update decades-old rules covering how many hours a day U.S. airline pilots can fly or remain on duty, the agency hoped to release draft regulations by early 2010.

That date later slipped by several months, but Mr. Babbitt and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood continued to say that keeping sleepy pilots away from the controls was essential. With Congress also prodding the FAA to move quickly, they talked about expedited White House review of regulatory changes.

Now, according to industry and government officials, the proposed changes are snagged by a dispute between the FAA and the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Budget officials have informally told the FAA that the proposal’s projected cost to airlines wasn’t justified by the anticipated safety benefits, according to people familiar with the details. As a result, there could be further delays in agreeing on a package.

The FAA’s proposals could cost carriers billions of extra dollars through the next decade. But if the agency scales back the proposal to reduce likely costs, FAA and outside experts fear it would undercut basic safety goals. If that happens, some pilots’ unions have threatened to oppose the entire package.”

I find it interesting that the administration is suddenly concerned about the cost of the new duty rules and the White House OMB is now in the decision tree for rules that affect the safety of flight for airlines.

What expertise does the OMB have in areas of safety?  

The committee formed by the FAA to come up with a new rule set was comprised of FAA, labor union representatives and industry representatives including experts in the areas of safety and fatigue. It would seem that this group would have a better grasp of the issues at hand than the OMB would.

I guess the concern is that this will cost the airlines billions. But what we all know is that the cost will be passed on to the traveling public, anyway.  We need to be prepared to pay more money to fly if we want to keep it safe. The public needs to get used to the idea that maybe it is worth a few more dollars per ticket to have a safe crew up front guiding the aircraft they are riding on.   

The current rules for crew duty time have been in place since the 1940s when aircraft could not fly the distances they fly today. The airlines of the 40s were not the same airlines we fly on today.  One would hope that we have learned a few things about safety, not just with aircraft design, but also with the human factors involved in flight.

Originally the FAA was prepared to issue a Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) this month; but, now, that has been pushed out to this Fall. I wonder how long this will drag out as the wheels of bureaucracy grind?  

Is Safety on Hold?  

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Just ask the stranded business travelers and tourists in Europe!

The Icelandic volcano (with the name that is hard to spell, much less pronounce) causing disruption to air travel in Europe has brought the importance of air travel to the forefront. Thousands if not hundreds of thousands of travelers were stranded trying to get home to or from Europe. Business and leisure travelers alike were grounded with no options for travel if they were leaving the continent.  Even U.S. President Obama was forced to miss the State funeral of Polish President Lech Kaczynski as a result of the ash.

Europe has the world’s most developed transportation infrastructure with high speed trains, excellent highway systems and airports, but when you are traveling to and from the continent you still have to cross water. That only happens by boat or air. The boat takes days and the air – a few hours!

The system of air travel not only employs millions across the world but it also supports the global economy by connecting businesses across the globe and by bringing tourists to many economies reliant on tourism for economic health.

Reuters News reports that “the International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimates that the crisis caused by a volcanic ash cloud above Europe cost airlines revenues of more than $1.7 billion by Tuesday.”

This is just the direct economic impact to the airlines, and in no way considers the impact to the business travelers who were stranded on one side of the pond or the other. What about the lost productivity? Even with today’s knowledge of human productivity values, there is probably no way to measure this cost; but, common sense says that  it has to be immense.

On a small scale,  and in terms that directly relate to my business, our Vice President of Business Development, Bill Minkoff, had planned to be in Prague this week at a meeting of business aviation companies. There is no way to tell how many opportunities to connect with aviation entrepreneurs in Eastern Europe we missed because of the disruption. Bill had hoped to get valuable face time with our Eastern European counterparts, making connections for future opportunities. He had also planned to stop for a meeting in Italy. The Italian meeting may be rescheduled for a few weeks from now when things settle down; but, the Prague trip (and its opportunities) is just gone.

When I think about the value of airlines and the air mass transit system, I believe that their greatest value is in their international travel options. Even with all of the problems of the airline system as a whole, international routes are the most effective and efficient in moving people, and they are the most difficult to replace with an alternate form of travel when things go wrong.

News sources commented that private jet travel soared during the shut down of airline travel since private jet operators had the flexibility to fly out of airports that were not closed by the ash and to take advantage of small windows of weather opportunity that the airlines, with their inflexible systems, could not. The charter operators in some regions may have gotten a boost from this crisis; but, even with their increased activity, they could not even begin to meet the needs of the stranded travelers.

Richard Branson said in an interview on National Public Radio that he feels confident that the European Union aerospace authorities will come up with solutions to mitigate the impact should this or other volcanoes create trouble in the future. The biggest key is identifying how much ash can be in the air before safety of flight is compromised. Based on the losses of the past week and the possibility of a recurrence, I am confident that EASA will research this and come up with good data to avoid unnecessary grounding of flights.  

Here in the United States, we can always get in our cars and drive.  In some cases, we might not spend much more time driving than we would have if we had flown. On 9/11, when all flights were grounded, I was stuck in Pennsylvania just south of Pittsburgh. We were fortunate to be able to get a car and made it home in 12 hours.  The same principle applies in Europe if you are staying on the continent.  The trip may take longer, but driving is still an option.

In today’s global economy, air travel is irreplaceable when it comes to moving people around the planet.

A volcano eruption on an island nation in the middle of the North Atlantic would seem to be a geographically isolated event.  In the past week, we  have found out differently.  We must take better care of improving the system of airline travel  we have created over the past 75 years if we want to prevent an economic crisis caused by another “isolated event.”

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No, not THOSE kinds of drugs.  Antidepressants.  I’ve been in aviation for years and didn’t realize until fairly recently that pilots were prohibited by the FAA from taking prescriptions to treat depression.  Well, that changed this week.  On April 5, 2010, the FAA dumped this 70-year-old rule that required a serious condition to go untreated. 

According to the FAA press release, “On a case-by-case basis beginning April 5, pilots who take one of four antidepressant medications – Fluoxetine (Prozac), Sertraline (Zoloft), Citalopram (Celexa), or Escitalopram (Lexapro) – will be allowed to fly if they have been satisfactorily treated on the medication for at least 12 months.”  The pilots in the program will be monitored by the FAA and by “(p)sychiatrists and Aviation Medical Examiners who have specialized training under the Human Intervention and Motivation Study (HIMS) program.”  The decision to remove this ban was not a snap decision by any means, but was the result of over two years of study.

I’ve read some comments by people I assume are travelers who believe that passengers should be notified if their pilot is medicated so that they might make an “informed decision” as to whether or not to take this flight.  Ummm.   First of all, that’s illegal.  You might want to check the HIPPA rules on that one.

Second, reading those kinds of comments leads me to believe that my next statement may come as a shock to many people.  Pilots are not Superheroes.  Seriously.  They’re not.  They are men and women who walk, talk, breathe, get colds, have asthma, have diabetes, have all sorts of normal, human infirmities. Passengers don’t get to know who their pilots are.  They don’t review aircraft maintenance logs, check training records or get to approve the crew list.  This is also true for train and bus travel.  At some point, we must either have some degree of faith in the government agencies who monitor and control these transportation options, or we must stay at home.

We talk a lot in this blog about how air mass-transit is costlier than it appears to be, that it’s inefficient, inconvenient and that customer service has really tanked.  What we haven’t said and what you won’t hear us say, is that we question their level of safety.  Year after year, air travel is statistically the safest mode of transportation in the United States.  Period.  Without question.  Infrequent fatal incidents may horrify our collective conscious and leave us with irrational fears, but the fact remains that air travel is safe. 

The FAA, airports, pilot groups, aircraft manufacturers, airlines, and everyone else involved in the industry have a vested interest in keeping the it safe.  This interest is what kept that rule in place for 70 years, waiting for pharmaceutical technology to produce safe treatment options. 

A few people expressed a fear that the pilot might “snap.”  This statement shows a thorough lack of experience with depression.  As someone is years of first-hand experience with it, I can guarantee you that the pilot, waiter, or postal worker you need to be worried about isn’t the one taking medication for their depression, it’s the untreated one hiding their condition.

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On January 25, Dan Robles suggested that Social Currency might be used to fight terrorism. Some of our friends on Linkedin joined the conversation. 

Greg Johnson, President, CEO and founder of OneSky Jets, says:

“I think there are a few interesting points of discussion in Dan’s latest post. The first relates to where we catch terrorists… Trying to stop them at the airport checkpoint is an effort in futility. Terrorists are a determined lot and as Dan states, they only have to succeed once. The answer lies in knowing more about everyone who elects to fly as personally invasive as that may sound.

The U.S. and other countries are already starting to collect more data from passengers…birthdate and place of birth in addition to name, even on domestic flights. There has been an ongoing debate about a federal ID card although my opinion is that an additional card would be redundant. The databases exist today to to give law enforcement a pretty decent ability to profile passengers and I only see that capability expanding.

The typical terrorist’s desire to keep a low profile works against them when they are attempting to blend in to an increasingly data-driven society. The absence of data or abnormal patterns will stand out.

I don’t believe that “social currency” on its own is enough. There are billions of peaceful people on the planet that are not actively engaged in social networking today. The fact that my Mother isn’t on Facebook, LinkedIn, or MySpace shouldn’t (on its own) subject her to an additional level of security screening, however a college student today without an online presence might throw a red flag or two.

Also, don’t think that law enforcement isn’t already leveraging social networks. I have an associate who has been involved in government facial recognition projects. When the government needed a database of names and photos to test this new technology, where do you think they went? The publicly available pages of Facebook!

So the net/net here in my opinion is that the publicly available data in social networks can and will be used by governments of the world as one facet in a multi-dimensional campaign to know who is flying before they get anywhere near the airport and in the big picture, that’s a good thing.”

Mike Osborne, Operations AME at Honeywell, shares this concern:

“How do you propose to ascertain their networks and claims? Either or both seem easy enough to falsify.”

My reply is:

“I believe that the idea is to go for a “preponderance of evidence.” Just as the lack of a credit report, utility bills or bank records casts doubt on the authenticity of an identity, the lack of social credit and social activity history casts doubt on the social interaction and perhaps even identity of the passenger. Certainly, just as false credit reports, etc. can be created to support an alias, false social backgrounds could be created to support it as well. I think the point that Dan Robles is making is that to create monetary history and social history that coincide is difficult and would make it more difficult for terrorists to support several believeable aliases.”

Kenneth J. Goldstein, President at KJG International Consulting, responds:

“No as left to their own devices, most would not provide a sufficient background to grant the rest of us security.”

What do you think?

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My mother was a chemistry teacher who, much to the dismay of her chart memorization-minded colleagues, left a copy of the periodic table uncovered on the wall for student reference.  I’m sure that period table memorization is just another circle in Dante’s Hell, but I digress.  Mother’s belief was that the students would end up remembering what they needed from using the chart.  Those that didn’t probably weren’t going to be chemists, anyway; so, it didn’t matter in the long run.  Her belief was that if they used information and skills, students would learn the basics in a more organic way than by memorization.

In his book Fate Is The Hunter, Ernest K. Gann describes crossing the North Atlantic using basic navigational tools of a watch and a sextant.  Certainly, today’s aviators have it much easier using radio beacons and even GPS.  Glass cockpits have replaced many gauges and dials with heads-up displays and automatic computation.  Once at cruising altitude, aircraft fly themselves, as some Northwest passengers unwittingly found out.  But what happens when these automations are interrupted?  Are today’s pilots comfortable enough with the basics?

When cell phones were new technology, people talked about losing reception due to solar activity.  Since normal cell phones don’t actually use satellites, dropped calls may have been more the result of the lack of a tower than a solar flare.  However, today’s technology is worlds different and global navigation systems do use those satellites to triangulate signals to pinpoint a location.  In a BBC News article, author Jason Palmer points out that the navigation systems use signals that are “incredibly weak and, as researchers have only recently begun to learn, sensitive to the activity on the Sun. … Solar flares – vast exhalations of magnetic energy from the Sun’s surface – spray out radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum, from low-energy radio waves through to high-energy gamma-rays, along with bursts of high-energy particles toward the Earth. The radiation or waves that come from the Sun can make sat-nav receivers unable to pick out the weak signal from satellites from the solar flare’s aftermath.”

While Business Week’s Jeremy van Loon contends that solar activity is currently at its lowest point in the century, Stuart Tiffen of Das Welt quotes Dr. Dirk Soltau of the Kiepenheuer Institute for Solar Physics as saying that sunspots seen on the face of the sun in recent months indicate that the star is at the beginning of another 11-year cycle.  Using past cycle activity to predict the behavior of this one, “by 2015, more charged particles from the sun will be interacting with the ionosphere in the Earth’s upper atmosphere. This can lead to the ionosphere thickening and interfering with orbiting satellites, Soltau said.”  However, Tiffen notes, many global agencies are working towards a solution, including the European Space Agency (ESA), which “recently launched the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS), which improves the accuracy of satellite navigation signals over Europe. … Using EGNOS, signal accuracy can be improved down to 1.5 meters, according to ESA.”  And Mark Petovello and Joe Kunches add in Inside GNSS, that agencies are constantly monitoring solar activity and are constantly moving satellites to avoid or diminish the effects of the increased radioactivity.  Clearly the global navigation industry is taking the situation seriously and is actively planning solutions.

What does this mean for aviation?

Since many aircraft currently use some sort of global positioning device for navigation, devices disabled or misdirected by the sun’s interference could wreak havoc with the entire system.  As antiquated and inefficient as the current ATC system in the United States is, it is less vulnerable to solar activity than the proposed NextGen system based on satellite communications.  Now, I’m no Luddite; so, I’m not about to propose that we stick with our current system any more than I would propose that we go back to flying low, following highways and train tracks.  The vulnerability of the system does make me a little uneasy, though, particularly given the newest generation of pilots who, while certainly capable, have not been trained to navigate the old-fashioned way.  What sort of back-up system do they have in their knowledge bases to deal with an outage of computer navigation systems?

Stay with me now, I’m going to make a big leap.

Colgan Air lost flight 3407 as a result of many factors culminating, according to the extensive NTSB investigation, in pilot error.  The pilots’ error was not leaving the autopilot engaged when they encountered icing conditions (as I originally asserted), but (as a reader John Herbert pointed out) “continuous violation of the sterile cockpit rules, resulting in a total loss of situational awareness, so that the flight crew let the aircraft speed decay until the plane stalled. When the aircraft tried to recover automatically, the pilot overrode the nose-down stick and pulled back, basically dropping the airspeed to zero.  Fatigue and limited training and experience were also involved.”  In response, the US Congress proposed legislation in H.R. 3371 requiring, in part, that pilots “have at least 1,500 flight hours to qualify for a certificate.”  To be honest, I’m not sure that section of the bill really needs to be there since both of the pilots involved in the event prompting the measure had more than 2,000 hours.  Earlier sections emphasize training, which is a more important issue.  After all, you can have 50,000 hours of flying tourists in the tropics, but that’s not going to help you in Sweden.  It’s not all about experience.  Training plays a huge role.

Now, let’s get back to solar flares.  How many pilots today routinely receive navigation training using any method other than global navigation or other systems vulnerable to solar activity?  Not that many.  So, unless we want to find ourselves back on the train, I would propose that pilot training include more navigational basics.  It’s not quick.  It’s not sexy.  But it works.

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As the CEO of a Part 135 / 91 aircraft charter and management company, I can not proclaim to be an expert on SMS. There are people in our industry a lot smarter on the subject than I am because they have taken the time and energy to study, learn, listen, share knowledge, and attempt to develop systems that incorporate the best practices of the collective knowledge of our industry.

What I can proclaim is that Safety is critical to our company. The fact is that Safety is the most critical issue we face. We cannot afford to do anything that does not allow us to operate at the highest level of safety. The group of people I have worked with over the years will tell you that I support them in operating at that level. I have often said, and I truly mean it when I say it, that if we cannot make a profit and operate at the highest level of safety, then I will get out of this business and do something else to make a living.

So, I have taken the time to listen and learn SMS and, as a company, we have invested money developing the processes and taking the time to put a true SMS in place – and, more importantly, to actually use the system. 

Our industry and the consumers that use us have not always rewarded those who adhere to the highest level of safety. Some users of our services have either assumed that the FAA keeps our industry “safe enough” or they just don’t care, concerning themselves only with price.

Safety Requires Thought and Time Investment! Safety Costs Money!

The debate has gotten heated over the requirement to have a Safety Management System in place, even in operations that do not hold themselves out for hire. The NBAA Avmgr Forum has hundreds of emails over the past few weeks from flight department managers and consultants to the industry on the subject of SMS.  

There are two sides to the debate and some merit exists even on the side that I do not sit on.

Here are comments from the side that says we don’t need SMS in our world of flying aircraft:

• Common sense, good, real training and operational policies that make sense (not policies on what to do when the pencil holder fails) are what we need to improve safety.
• I have only been flying for 38 years and never needed a SMS manual to be safe. It might be a useful tool for larger operations but for a 2-5 pilot ops is simply a waste of time, money and trees.
• Having me write a SMS manual for my three pilot one aircraft operation is a waste of my time, but reviewing a good document on aviation safety and best practices could be a good read on occasion.  Such an approach could generate discussion among pilots, promoting teamwork and better understanding of safe decision making…  The bureaucratic approach to safety will yield lots of paper documents but I suspect it will do little to actually advance safe operations.

 And from the pro-SMS side: 

• Many in our industry are making IS-BAO a lot more complex than it needs to be. The discipline of having an outside perspective (auditor) is a generally accepted business practice.  It is designed to give you credibility as a leader, not talk behind your back.  ”Because I said so….” Is not an effective tool.  We do this in the cockpit and call it CRM, line checks, etc.  Why not with our overall operations?
• Yes, common sense is king. Commons sense is missing from allot [sic]of issues, in and out of aviation. Sure, he who flies with the most paper is not the winner. But neither is he who flies with the least paper the most competent and safe. It all requires balancing common sense, necessity, need and what really works.
• The concept of risk identification and mitigation is embraced in many industries…. We often like to think we are ahead of the pact[sic], but the reality is most of the world has left us (Aviation) in the dust when it comes to codification of best practices and risk mitigation.

From Dwayne McMurry, our Director of Operations, with whom I have worked side by side for over 20 years, the following observation:

 “If I were the owner of an operation that had a flight department with 2 or 3 pilots, I would suggest that the Chief Pilot is not guaranteed to be at my company forever and the airplane, pilots and flight department as a whole would most likely survive him/her.  I would certainly want an Operations Manual or SOP of some type and a Safety Management System in place to pass down established policy, procedure and history of my flight department to the next pilot(s) for the future of my flight department.

Sometimes pilots and flight department managers forget they work for somebody and feel they only have to answer to themselves.  If you wrote the check for the plane and fly it yourself, that’s one thing.  When someone hires you to do a job … most likely, some day, for some reason, someone will replace you and a legacy should be passed on.  What better way to do it?”

This is a complex debate that cannot be fully covered in one blog post or article. What I will say is this: that I would not want our company to operate on pure common sense alone and would also not want to operate strictly from the manual without common sense. What about a combination of good common sense and experience combined with a system that establishes processes, procedures and ways to measure safety? Could it be that we need both?!

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PBS  Frontline’s Documentary investigates the crash of the Colgan Air Dash 8-Q400 flight number 3407. 

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/flyingcheap/view/?utm_campaign=viewpage&utm_medium=toparea&utm_source=toparea

Reporter Miles O’Brien is a pilot and 20 year veteran of reporting on aviation issues.  He gives this story the time and depth it deserves, covering an issue that has long been brewing about the regional airlines hiring and training practices, as well as their dismal pay scales, all driven by the demand to offer seats at the lowest possible price.

No one in the airline industry or the private aviation side of air travel sets out at the beginning of each day making decisions that they believe will lead to a fatal crash of one of their aircraft.  So how does it happen, and what part can the NTSB, FAA, DOT and the industry play in doing everything possible to prevent it from happening again?

When is the consumer educated to the point they realize that the airlines cannot deliver increased safety at lower costs?  Safety costs money!

This story is worth an hour of your time to gain a better understanding of the issues our air transportation system faces with the economics of safety.

In a world where mainstream media sensationalizes everything and looks for the one minute stories to feed us in sound bites, the guys who have produced this have created a story that will, or at least should, make a difference.

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A  February 1 article by A. Pawlowski of CNN titled “How old is the plane you’re flying on?” says the following: “Few people expect luxury while flying, but these days, even the basics seem to be in bad shape. It’s not uncommon to find your tray table broken, the in-flight entertainment system not working and your seat cushion worn — all of which can make you think, how old is this plane anyway?”

“But for now, the reality for many U.S. air travelers is that most of their journeys take place on planes that have been in service for a decade or more and show it, though in ways that have no impact on their safety – like worn interiors, broken creature comforts and less than spotless conditions.”

Sounds more like riding on the metro rail than flying on an aircraft. Maybe that is what the experience ends up being in the future? Mass transit by Air! 

The average age of the fleet of the seven large U.S. passenger airlines – including American, Alaska, Continental, the merged Delta and Northwest, Southwest, United and US Airways – is about 14 years old, according to The Airline Monitor. It found American and Delta/Northwest had the oldest fleets, at about 16 years on average. As of the end of 2008, a small percentage of the merged Delta/Northwest’s planes dated back to the late 1960s.

U.S. fleets are among the oldest in the world, said Richard Aboulafia, an aviation analyst at the Teal Group in Fairfax, Virginia.

So all of this begs the question about safety and are these aircraft still safe?

Most everyone will agree, as do the experts quoted in the article, that the fleet of airline aircraft in the United States are maintained to the highest standards in the world and that they are safe. The safety record of US airlines have continued to improve each decade due to good maintenance, technology upgrades in the cockpit and better training of pilots and maintenance personnel.

I have no fear of getting on a 16-year-old aircraft operated by a major air carrier in this country and no worry about arriving safely. The professionals who fly and maintain these aircraft are the best in the world, in spite of the bad press of a very few isolated incidents where the pilots are “working on their laptops” and forget where they are.

The Airline Industry is Safe! But what about the experience?

Is the traveling public going to resign themselves to the idea that all they can expect is to safely arrive? That’s all you expect when you hop on the metro rail in any major city.

There is an alternative for the traveler - it’s called private aviation or business aviation and it’s anything but the same old experience!

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