Self-regulation grounds US air travelers. Are Canadians next?
Aeronautics Act (C-7), now awaiting Third Reading, could be victim of Southwest and American Airlines debacles.
by Ish Theilheimer, Publisher, PublicValues.ca
While US air travelers reel from shutdowns and cancellations due to airline self-regulation, Canadians could face similar problems, unless the US experience serves as a caution. If proposed changes to Canada's regulations affecting the airlines (Bill C-7) pass Third Reading in Parliament, airline safety will become more an airline responsibility and less a public one. With airlines under enormous pressure due to soaring oil prices, consumer and labour advocates say safety is likely to be compromised.
They point to Southwest Airlines and American Airlines as proof that self-regulation and a "cozy" approach to relations between regulators and those they regulate do not work.
This month Southwest was ordered to pay the largest fine in aviation safety history — $10 million — for gross and numerous airplane safety violations that were ignored or unreported. Planes had been allowed to fly in unsafe condition on the say-so of airline officials — not inspectors — under new federal "partnership" arrangements with the airline industry. As a result of the fine, the legal costs and the bad publicity, Southwest may not survive as a company, leaving hundreds without jobs and many of the areas its serves without air travel. The violations were only exposed because a group of company inspectors finally reported the abuses. At least two of the whistle-blowers received death threats.
According to a story in the Wall Street Journal the bad publicity may undermine the self-regulation trend. "Driven by budget and policy considerations, the Federal Aviation Administration wants to move further in the direction of allowing airlines to self-regulate their activities, with the FAA analyzing safety and maintenance data to spot trends. If the Southwest controversy casts lasting doubt on information coming from industry, this enforcement strategy could be threatened," it reported on April 3, in coverage of the Congressional transportation and infrastructure committee on FAA Safety Oversight of Airlines: Abuses of Regulatory "Partnership Programs."
CUPE researcher Richards Balnis told PublicValues.ca, "Essentially both in Canada and in the US, the regulated industry has a very cozy relationship with the regulator, whether it's Transport Canada or the FAA. Both regulating agencies are pursuing a strategy where if an airline detects a problem and voluntarily discloses it, there will be no punishment and no enforcement action taken."
Balnis said "The inspectors union is now very fearful that they will be auditing airlines' [reporting] systems, but they will not be inspecting planes. You can always create a paper trail," he says, to make scrutiny look more rigorous than it is. And simply finding out about a problem and telling the regulator about it doesn't mean it gets fixed, he said. "It's that culture of coziness that created the situation at Southwest."
In related news this week, American Airlines was forced to ground more than 1,000 flights to re-inspect wiring on MD-80 aircraft after the FAA questioned if previous re-inspections had been done properly.
Meanwhile in Canada, Bill C-7 is stalled in the House as it awaits Third Reading and passage into law and labour and consumer activists fight to stop it. The Aeronautics Act "will do for air safety what similar amendments over the last twenty years have done for marine and railway safety i.e. transfer primary responsibility for safety from Transport Canada to the industry itself, according to the Public Interest Advocacy Centre in a StraightGoods.ca article.
"At the heart of the change is a move by Transport Canada to let airlines police their own operations," reports the Toronto Star. "Under this change, airline employees will be encouraged to flag safety concerns within their own organizations. If that information is gathered by federal inspectors, the legislation bans its public release, even under access-to-information legislation. And unlike cabinet confidences, which are made public after 25 years, the reports of safety concerns would stay secret forever."
Richard Balnis is dismayed with the results of governments getting out of airline inspection and enforcement. "I wouldn't dignify it by calling it a privatized system. I would call it trusting the industry," he says. "They say safety is our business, but they are under tremendous cost pressures to cut corners." Meanwhile, he says government is getting out of the business of regulation and government agencies are taking the attitude "just call off the inspectors."
http://www.publicvalues.ca:80/ViewArticle.cfm?Ref=0029
Can airport nightmare happen here?
Critics say new Canadian safety measures mirror those causing the problems in U.S.
Apr 10, 2008 04:30 AM
Chris Sorensen
Business Reporter
Transport Canada's efforts to transfer greater responsibility for safety oversight to airlines is being called into question after a similar approach by U.S. regulators allowed potentially unsafe planes to continue flying because of a "cozy" relationship with U.S. air carriers.
Amid criticism of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration's oversight, tens of thousands of passengers were left stranded yesterday after American Airlines cancelled about 1,000 flights, or about half of its schedule, as it continues to inspect the wiring on some of its jets.
That was on top of 450 flights cancelled Tuesday for the same reason.
It was the second round of mass cancellations by the world's largest airline in less than two weeks as it attempts to head off any loss in confidence about safety procedures amid revelations that several U.S. airlines had not been keeping up with required aircraft inspections.
The lapses came to light earlier this month after the FAA admitted it allowed Southwest Airlines to operate thousands of flights with planes that had missed inspections for cracks in the fuselage.
"The other airlines are being proactive and the FAA is managing its image," said Marc-David Seidel, a business professor at the University of British Columbia's Sauder School of Business.
He added that rising fuel prices and a slowing economy have put pressure on airlines to cut costs – and could prompt some to cut corners by delaying certain inspections.
While the FAA has so far pointed the finger at individual inspectors who failed to do their jobs, critics have suggested there may be systemic problems with the regulator's focus on having airline "partners" self-report safety issues.
Some critics in Canada, meanwhile, say the FAA's recent problems should be setting off alarm bells at Transport Canada, which is poised to adopt a similar collaborative approach to air safety that it dubs Safety Management Systems, or SMS.
"Transport Canada, I think, is going even further than the FAA by doing away with traditional regulatory oversight," said Virgil Moshansky, a retired Alberta judge whose report on a 1989 Air Ontario crash in Dryden that killed 24 people led to many air safety improvements.
Moshansky told the Commons transport committee last year the Canadian plan relies heavily on airline personnel to report their own violations and safety worries. He characterized that as a "hard sell" for workers who may fear reprisals.
He also questioned whether cash-strapped smaller carriers could be trusted to monitor their own safety, noting that such operations are where the "greatest risk to aviation safety resides."
A 2006 investigation by the Toronto Star, the Hamilton Spectator and The Record of Waterloo Region revealed growing cracks in Canada's aviation industry, with close calls in the sky, growing numbers of mechanical defects, lax oversight of airlines and regulations allowing dangerous bad-weather landings and overwork of flight crews.
Moshansky said yesterday that the trend at Transport Canada has been toward fewer inspectors and less frequent inspections, and that recent events in the U.S. should serve as a wake-up call.
"They're introducing SMS without sufficient regulatory oversight ... and that's their Achilles' heel."
Transport Canada, however, maintains that safety plan will add an additional layer of safety to an already strong system – particularly if Bill C-7, which includes among other things a proposal to create whistle-blower protection for airline employees, is passed into law.
While Transport Canada officials declined to comment yesterday on the issues facing the US. regulator, they stressed that aviation safety in Canada has improved since the regulator first committed to a collaborative approach in 1999.
"Working together doesn't mean you can't enforce regulations," said Patrick Charette, a Transport Canada spokesperson. "By working together you build a relationship that makes airlines and other players accountable."
He said the adoption of a new system means Transport Canada's roughly 800 inspectors can perform more targeted inspections.
http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/413085
