New FAA Efforts on Safety Concerns

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Randy Babbitt is putting a new focus on air safety, by moving to improving the agency’s response to public safety complaints and whistleblower charges. He also outlined ongoing actions to ensure that air carriers comply with safety directives. The FAA also promises to improve how it communicates and interacts with employees, the public, air carriers, and manufacturers based on last year’s focused inspections on air carriers’ compliance with Airworthiness Directives (ADs). The FAA will no longer refer to airlines as the agency’s ‘customer’. “These changes make it clear that the FAA’s number-one customer is the public,” said Administrator Babbitt. “We know we can improve how we all communicate technical safety information so we maintain a safe U.S. fleet and avoid flight cancellations wherever possible.”

The changes include the following:

Creating a new Office of Audit and Evaluation that will handle all public safety complaints and whistleblower contributions. The FAA is now providing managers and supervisors in safety offices around the nation with guidance to ensure that FAA decisions are consistent with rules and policies and are communicated in a standard, consistent manner.

The FAA is strengthening the procedures used by air carriers, manufacturers, and the FAA to ensure that air carriers comply with ADs.

The agency has also chartered an Aviation Rulemaking Committee to identify and implement long-term actions that can be completed by the third quarter of 2011.