The Department of Transportation (DOT) seems to have finally awakened to the reality that if airlines don’t feel any pain, they aren’t motivated to change. After years of cozy inspector/inspected relationships, the federal government department responsible for airline safety seems to mean business. Big fines are flying and the airlines are being called out.
The latest safety violations seem to be coming at the expense of American Airlines where FAA inspectors now claim, according to the Wall Street Journal, that maintenance of MD-80s is substandard. Preliminary FAA findings that “have identified as many as 16 [AA MD-80s] that were operated for months despite allegedly substandard bulkhead repairs.”
Fines for this violation and possible flight cancellations are going to be massive.
It all started about a year-and-a-half ago with the flap over Southwest Airlines and a series of missed inspections. Southwest eventually ended up paying a fine of $7.5 million for inspection violations and the FAA inspector responsible for monitoring Southwest was reassigned.
American Airlines was also caught up last year in a massive maintenance problem that resulted in thousands of flight cancellations. After plenty of back-and-forth bureaucratic bickering, American got the problems fixed. However, it was fined more than $7 million for “improperly deferring maintenance on safety-related equipment and deficiencies with its drug and alcohol testing programs and exit lighting inspections.”
United Airlines and USAirways, earlier this month, have been fined millions of dollars for maintenance failures. United was fined a $3.8 million civil penalty and USAirways was dunned a $5.4 million civil penalty.
FAA fines are going sky high it seems based on a per-aircraft criteria.
I’m still waiting for the FAA to a pronouncement regarding the engine failure problems at American Airlines.
There is no doubt about it. Airline fines are increasing under the current DOT and FAA administrators. The big question remains, will these fines help realign the relationships between the FAA inspectors and the inspected airlines.
The DOT still has a long way to go in its mission to protect consumers. Maintenance and safety are two of the most important responsibilities, but the DOT needs to step up to the plate with better enforcement of bait-and-switch advertising and resolution of consumer problems.
While it is nice to have the department beginning to make some advertising violation fines and record passenger complaints, we would like to see more of their actions against airlines for violating bumping and lost-luggage rules as well as misleading advertising.
It appears that the DOT and the FAA are beginning to become more proactive in their enforcement of safety and consumer regulations as advocacy groups such as the newly-formed Consumer Travel Alliance, this blog and other media outlets are providing a new level of vigilance and enforcement transparency when it comes to consumer issues.
