Is This Thing Safe to Fly?

In my former life/career, to say I was a road-warrior was somewhat of an understatement.  On average, I flew over 65,000 miles per year and had every reward club privilege you could imagine.  A vast majority of my Mondays were spent in airport terminals drinking over-priced, lousy coffee, with the occasional bad breakfast thrown into the mix.  On the airline that I flew with most (now defunct after purchase by a lousy airline), some flight attendants recognized me as I boarded the aircraft—I kid you not!

As a frequent flyer, there is always a thought or two about an airliner crashing, but it usually doesn’t linger because of how often you do fly and the great safety record of the airlines (for the last 20 years at least).  There is no question that flying is still, statistically speaking, the safest way to travel.  Cars have a pretty bad safety record, trains are better but still not as good as air travel. For the number of people transported, the number of take-offs and landings, the number of miles covered, airline safety is second to none.

Now, this not say that there haven’t been some issues that cause doubt and concern such as; poor maintenance practices, training, and cargo issues.  In the 1990s there were a number of fatal crashes caused by these lapses of safety that the airlines needed to address.  However, since the start of the Third Millennium, there have been very few air disasters in the US, excluding 911 of course, which was a totally different issue.  Air travel has had very few safety issues over the last ten years until now.

In the last 5 months, we have seen two aircraft built by the dominant aircraft manufacturer in US crash (although not on American soil).  Both of these crashes (although both are still under investigation) are believed to have been caused by flight control issues related to an override system, as reported by several news agencies (I am not an engineer so don’t hold me to the minutia in facts here).  Irrespective of the actual cause, it is very suspicious to have two crashes involving the same model aircraft and both being brand new in such a close period of time.

Most nations who own this model aircraft moved quickly to ground it after the second crash.  The only nation who refused to ground was the US.  The manufacturer pleaded its defense that the aircraft was safe, yet other nations did not agree and protected the safety of their citizens and customers.  Those nations also would not even let the aircraft in question fly in their airspace.  Yet, despite global fears for safety the good ole US of A dug their heels in and allowed this aircraft to keep flying.

So, this brings me to a very interesting question; Why would we allow a potentially dangerous aircraft fly in our airspace with our citizen customers when everyone else would not?  Well, as always, I believe the answer is greed!  Several airlines both domestic and global announced that they would be losing over $46,000 per aircraft every day that they do not fly.  Sure, that is a lot of money, but my friends, what is the value of the over 300 people who died in the crashes that happened abroad?

Here is something that confirms my theory; there is a database used by commercial pilots in the US to anonymously file reports and complaints regarding aircraft and airline safety or other issues.  Two media sources have indicated that there were many pilots who have complained about this aircraft since its launch with the airlines in the US.  The exact number of pilots was not disclosed but you are led to believe that there could be at least hundreds.  Many of the pilots that had reported on the site had indicated the aircraft was very unstable at times and difficult to fly.

After a very dumb tweet, sent by our tweety-in-chief saying that aircraft are too complex and have been unsafe for years (not true at all, as discussed earlier, the aircraft that have been built over the last 20 years have operated very safely), our president, finally did the right thing and grounded the aircraft.  The very sad but not unpredictable thing here is that the manufacturer, FAA, and airlines in this country did not want to ground the aircraft even though everyone else globally did.  Once again, we see that US corporations have little regard for the safety and lives of their customers.

Now, as a veteran traveler, I can tell you with great certainty that I will not fly this plane until it is demonstrably fixed (complete with much testing as evidence).  I laughed at a talking head who felt that the government should not be involved in this process.  That it was a demonstration of too much government control and that the customers should have forced the grounding by not flying on this aircraft.  Allow me to explain to this person why that would not work.

A very small percentage of people fly with the same frequency or miles as me and some others who make their living globally.  The casual passenger has little knowledge of aircraft type, safety or even age of the aircraft they board.  Most could not tell you the difference between an MD-80 or a DC-3 (look it up).  As a customer, they rely on the provider of their service to offer them quality, safety, and satisfaction (I know, it has become blind trust).  I will touch on corporate fiduciary or moral responsibility in an upcoming blog.

For now, all is safe, but I believe that the message that was delivered was clear; we cannot rely on corporations to safeguard our well-being, instead, we must have regulations and regulators looking out for the customer.  More on this later.

Talk To Ya Soon

The Grumpy Old Fart Customer