Deregulation in the airline industry: Is it safe to fly?

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A survivor of Japan Air Lines Flight 123, which crashed on Aug. 12, 1985, is hoisted from the disaster scene. The crash killed 520 people. 12 SOCIALIST ACTION FEBRUARY 1986 It was the deadliest year in aviation history. With more than 2000 deaths worldwide from plane crashes in 1985, concern is mounting among aviation safety experts and the public that the margin of safety is narrowing in the air lanes.

Among U.S.-based carriers, five major crashes alone claimed the lives of 523 human beings. These involved a chartered Arrow Air DC-8 at Newfoundland, a Delta L-1011 at Dallas-Ft. Worth, a Midwest Express Airlines DC-9 at Milwaukee, a Galaxy Electra prop-jet at Reno, and an Eastern Airlines 727 in Bolivia. And in Japan, a faulty repair by Boeing caused the worst single-plane accident ever when a Japan Air Lines Boeing 747 crashed, killing 520 people.

Further, the number of near-accidents, according to the Federal Aviation Admin -istration (FAA), was running 40 percent higher through July 1985 than for the same period in 1984. The number of runway incidents through July 1985 was 10 percent higher than the total for all of 1984.

The FAA has been quick to argue that there is no connection between the recent rash of air disasters. But the common link may be the FAA itself, which oversees today's deregulated skies.

The fact is, when Congress passed the Airline Deregulation Act in 1978, it in effect threw caution to the winds as far as air safety goes, and the FAA has proven powerless to do much about it.

By U.S. standards, commercial aviation had been a highly regulated business until 1978. The Civil Aeronautics Board, which President Roosevelt set up in 1938, tight -ly controlled approval of routes, fares, and mergers. It was a system that benefited the largest airlines the most-restricting com -petition and guarding against heavy financial losses.

Dismantling this system, so deregula -tion's proponents argued, would lead to lower fares and expanded service since the airlines would be forced to compete strictly on the merit of services offered.

Deregulation has indeed spawned lower fares, at least on the most frequently traveled routes, as a flurry of new "nofrills" and regional airlines have entered the market.

But it's a scramble to survive in this "free-market" free-for-all, and not all make it. Some new airlines find themselves grounded by financial losses before they've even had a chance to spread their wings. More established carriers, too, face takeover attempts, even bankruptcy in the uncertain skies of deregulation.

versus safety In terms of safety, this charged-up competition has bred a trend toward costcutting and corner-cutting at many commercial airlines. It is a trend that, quite simply, translates into a deteriorating level of safe air travel.

"The ultimate cost of those $99 airline tickets," says John J. Nance, a former pilot for Braniff and author of Blind Trust, a new book on air safety, " may be measurable in more than services lost and leg room sacrificed. The true cost may be paid in passenger lives, because Congress has inadvertently degraded airline safety.

"The passenger was not told by Congress or the proponents of deregulation the ultimate truth about the enticing free-market proposal," Nance goes on to say. "If prices are cut, costs must be cut, and something more than executive salaries and union contracts will have to give. The cost of safety would be one of those affected items." (Blind Trust: How Dergulation Has Jeopardized Airline Safety and What You Can Do About It, William Morrow & Co., New York, N.Y., 1986, $17.95)

What the public has perhaps been slow to perceive, management understands all too well. "There is an inherent conflict between competition and safety improve -ments," says Edwin I. Colodny, chief executive officer of USAir. The public should understand, Colony admits, that safety improvements have "got to come out of the ticket price."

The term "no-frills," in fact, often means far more than paying extra to check baggage or eat a meal. It can mean lessexperienced pilots, older planes, less fuel reserves, and-especially at non-union airlines—intense management pressure to skirt FAA rules.

Perhaps the first "deregulation crash," as it has been called, occurred in 1982 when an Air Florida Boeing 737 crashed on takeoff during a winter storm in Washington, D.C.

At the time, Air Florida was rapidly transforming itself from a small Florida commuter line into a large interstate carrier. But the operational procedures at this "darling of deregulation" were sorely deficient.

This was an airline that in 1979 did not even have any standard operations manuals, although it had told the FAA it did. Its lack of proper flight-crew training and its haphazard maintenance program posed such omiuri Shimhur serious safety problems that some safety experts believe the airline could legally have been shut down in 1979.

But it was not shut down, and the consequences were tragic. One of the key factors in the crash, according to the National Transportation Safety Board, proved to be pilot inexperience.

Air Florida, in its quest to expand, had hired pilots from a small commuter line who were unqualified to fly more sophisticated aircraft, especially in unfa -miliar winter-weather conditions. Most importantly, management never provided the required training to upgrade their skills.

All-too-quick promotions for pilots, in fact, are an all-too-common reality at many new airlines. "The average pilot on United [Airlines] spends at least 16 years in an apprenticeship before being promoted to captain," says Pat Flanagan, who heads the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) at United in San Francisco (San Francisco Examiner, Oct. 29, 1985). According to Flanagan, many pilots for the new airlines become captains in two years.

Another byproduct of deregulation is the growing use of used planes. "The smaller and more thinly financed the carrier," Nance explains, "the more pressure there is to buy used, less efficient, (and marginally performing) aircraft in which trusting, paying passengers."

In fact, the average age of the world airline fleet has risen from five to 10 years since 1971—and the number of age-related accidents is also rising.

From 1974 to 1979 metal fatigue or corrosion, which are common problems for aging aircraft, caused 21.4 percent of all accidents attributed to structural or mechanical failure. But from 1979 to 1983 accidents caused by metal fatigue or corrosion caused 38.7 percent of structureand mechanical-related accidents.

A case in point: The Lockheed Electra, a plane built in the late 1950s and today flown by many charter and commuter airlines. In the course of seven months in 1984-85, three Electras crashed in the United States (one crash at Reno, Nev., killed 68 people).

Some 46 Electras have been involved in accidents in recent years, out of 175 such models in commercial service.

"No-frills" fuel loads

At many new or regional airlines, too, these used planes are flying with what might be called a "no-frills" fuel policy, often arriving at their destinations with little more than minutes of fuel left and no margin for error. The more fuel a plane carries, the less passengers and cargo it can take, and the less revenue for the airline.

And if the profit margin does not look good, its effect on the safety margin can look even worse. The National Trans -portation Safety Board, for example, surveyed managers at commuter (regional) airlines in 1980 and found that 65 percent believed that there was a relationship between safety and the economic well-being of an airline.

The managers said financial problems could lead to procedures and regulations being disregarded. For example, pilots were found to be more reluctant to report maintenance deficiencies that might ground an aircraft.

There was an increased likelihood that extra passengers would be placed on aircraft already at their maximum gross weight. It was more likely that the inventory of spare parts would be reduced. And, the managers said, the extensiveness of pilot training programs was likely to be reduced.

Still, if pressure to cut corners is more pronounced at newer or smaller airlines, that does not mean they are nonexistent at more established industry giants.

Aviation Week and Space Technology (Nov. 11, 1985) reveals that "pilots throughout the industry have been reporting that airlines are deferring maintenance on selected items for longer periods of time.' W.B. Mackley, a retired Air New Zealand captain, also told this industry journal that airline managements' "hard-nosed" pursuit of the dollar "has led some of them to apply pressures on their flight crews to overlook standard operating procedures and regulations...under threat of loss of employment."

One reason for the increased pressure on flight and maintenance crews stems from a shift to what is known as the "hub-andspoke" system to route connecting flights.

Most airlines now fly planes to a central hub, from which flights are then routed to the outlying spokes on the carriers' systems. Before, most airlines operated under the "point-to-point" system, flying planes back and forth between two points-where they often sat idle for hours between flights.

Aviation Week & Space Technology (Nov. 11, 1985) explains that "aircraft are being flown more hours under this concept...but there is less time between flights to accomplish unscheduled main -tenance, which accounts for the tendency to defer items."

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operations that engage in dangerous cornercutting. Sometimes, as at American Airlines, it is expansion that is the culprit.

American, which plans to spend $6 billion over the next five years to add 160 planes to its 290-aircraft fleet, was recently fined $1.S million by the FAA for a series of pilot, training, and maintenance violations. Last year, American increased its capacity by 20 percent. But its maintenance staff grew by only 7 percent.

Some of the violations cited by the FAA are a good indication of what happens when a cost-conscious management encourages corner-cutting.

In June 1985, for example, a supervisor for American in Chicago used an auto -mobile spring to repair a transmitter that controls part of a DC-10's tail section. He told the FAA that the right part wasn't available and if he didn't make a temporary repair, the flight would be canceled.

A month earlier, an American Boeing 767 aborted a takeoff in Indianapolis Ind., when one engine wouldn't accelerate. The engine was tested three times and the plane sent out again with its passengers without being repaired An FAA inspector concluded that the incident "indicates that [American's] priorities lie more with meeting the schedule than having their equipment meet its performance criteria."

In another case, pilots at American reported a dozen log entries concerning a SHOO! established mainstream airlines had always kept their minimum standards far above the FAA's minimum requirements. This he attributes to the fact that before 1978 airlines could pass on the cost of safety to the ticket price.

But the higher standards of the larger airlines were not a rare display of managerial responsibility. Rather, it is another demonstration of why the flying public has a stake in supporting unions' demands for better working conditions in the aviation industry.

As one striking Continental Airlines pilot told the San Francisco Examiner (Oct. 29, 1985), "ALPA long has had higher standards than the FAA's minimum requirements. The only reason the airlines do [have higher standards] is because unions negotiate the contract. A lot of non-union carriers don't have that protection."

Continental is a case in point. After management voided its union contracts in 1982, the airline was forced to quickly promote a roster of scab pilots to keep operating.

During the "new" Continental's first year alone, AulA cited more than 150 satety violations at the airline.

Those who defend airline deregulation are quick to say that statistically air travel has never been safer. But using the increased volume of air travel to create a statistical mirage of an improving air system is a rather cruel rejoinder to the actual victims of air disasters.