FAA 'Customer' Survey

I received an interesting survey in today’s email from a CFI Group International on behalf of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Most of the questions were fairly innocuous, but they saved the best for last. They asked whether, in light of my contacts with the Flight Standards District Office (FSDO), I am likely to follow the regulations when performing my task as a mechanic.

If you got the same email, what was your first reaction to that question? Personally, I felt that the question itself was an insult to my professional integrity. The very definition of integrity is what you do when you think no one is looking. I asked in the comments box that followed whether they would have had the chutzpah to ask the same of any pilots?

The clear implication here was that the FAA feels that without their oversight, a number of A&P mechanics would not act in a responsible, let alone professional, manner. What is it about the FAA that makes them talk down to mechanics, but up to pilots?

I have been in both arenas and I assure you that I’ve seen far more professionalism from A&P mechanics as a group than I have from pilots. Pilots know that if they’re successful at shaving a couple of corners, their chances of getting caught are usually (but not always) fairly slim. Mechanics, however, know that anything they do less than perfectly can come back to haunt them months, or even years later. That’s why they try to do everything perfectly, every time.

FAA probably spent thousands of dollars contracting out this survey that no one had to develop. All they did was recycle the survey from four years ago that contained the same insulting questions. What was done with that one? I certainly didn’t hear of sweeping changes being made as a result of the responses they received.

There were no questions in the survey asking if I felt that the safety inspectors needed pay raises equal to those given air traffic controllers, or if I felt that the inspector ranks were being bloated by "quota hires" that put an unfair workload on experienced personnel, or whether I felt that "make-work" paperwork and checklists were getting in the way of the real safety surveillance task of these inspectors.

The survey was, instead, largely a feel-good excercise that was not intended to ask any hard-hitting questions, nor raise any potentially embarrassing controversy. In short, it was a typical Washington waste of the taxpayers’ money. One would think that the funds wasted on this consulting firm could be better utilized buying pizza for PAMA chapter meetings and asking those in attendance for some constructive input. When’s the last time that happened?

That gets us to the question of who the FAA’s "customers" are. I could be wrong, but as a U.S. citizen I’ve always had the quaint idea that the FAA worked for me, not vice-versa. To my non-technical mind, the "Boss" is not the FAA Administrator, but the American People. If the old adage that the customer is always right holds true, then FAA certainly has no firm grasp on that particular concept.

Safety requires the free and open exchange of experience and ideas between the regulators and those who are being regulated. A survey such as that described above sets the cause back, just as do highly publicized "emergency" shut-downs of repair facilities for minor alleged infractions, without allowing the facility managers a fair, impartial hearing.

Safety also requires a high degree of mutual respect and trust between the FSDO and those it oversees. In the vast majority of cases, that is what exists today, to the everlasting credit of those on both sides of the fence. That’s what makes our system the envy of the rest of the aviation world.

In a very few cases, however, at 800 Pennsylvania Avenue in DC, non-aviating bureaucrats thrive and exert a lot of control to prevent any reality or logic from intruding on the system. They’re the ones that commission the national surveys that tear down the very trust and respect that safety is so dependent upon. They do so blithely unaware of the ramifications. You don’t think an Airworthiness Inspector from your FSDO would question your integrity or professionalism in an email, do you? Of course not.

If you received a copy of the survey, ignore the last question. You know, the one that implies you’re a sleazeball who would kill all his customers in a great ball of flame, if only it were’nt for the pesky FAA watching over his shoulder.

If you have a solid relationship with your fellow A&P professionals at the FSDO, continue to work with them to enhance the system. After all, they probably resent the survey as much, if not more, than you do.