Time was when the Federal Aviation Administration wanted to flex its muscles to prove it was doing its job, it went after commuter/regional airlines. Not so, today. Regionals, with the exception of American Connection Trans States and American Eagle, have remained largely untouched by the latest round of inspections which caused airlines, especially American, to cancel thousands of flights.
The problem began with Southwest which failed to comply with airworthiness directives and, later, moved to American Airlines. It brought to mind allegations that local FAA teams were too cozy with their regional airline charges during the 1980s which resulted in the shutdown of some of the industry’s most powerful companies including Provincetown-Boston Airlines, which, at one time, was the country’s largest regional.
During the 1980s, the regional industry underwent massive inspections called Tiger Teams (the newest iteration of which is the recently announced National Safety Inspection Review teams) to examine everything the industry was doing. Regional executives complained that their FAA-approved operational manuals where being cross questioned by the Tiger Teams and they were being shut down for following the mandates set down by the FAA in those approved manuals. Local FAA was being overridden by the teams because local interpretations of the Federal Aviation Regulations differed from those of inspectors from outside the region.
Today, it is American crying foul. In a recent statement the carrier said FAA unfairly changed the rules for compliance and is making unreasonable demands about the interpretation of safety orders.
In the 1980s, many in the industry suspected that the shutdowns had as much to do with teaching what the FAA considered arrogant regional executives lessons than it had to do with real safety issues and judging from who was shut down, it was not beyond question. Today, no less than Former National Transportation Safety Board Member John Goglia said Washington politics influenced the FAA’s recent crackdown on American.
When the regional industry was in the cross hairs, regional executives also suggested that growing safety concerns in the entire industry, resulting from the nearly unchecked growth after deregulation, was deflected onto regional airlines because they were less powerful and impacted fewer passengers. Meanwhile, flagrant safety violations of more powerful carriers such as Eastern Airlines went unpunished until maintenance whistleblowers went public in the early 1990s. Today, whistle blowers again played their part.
To be fair, some regional airline practices were in need of improvement, especially with respect to pilot training, another big issue in the 1980s. However, it was the rejection of FAA-approved operational manuals that left the industry howling in protest with ittle recourse. Once the safety gauntlet had been thrown, anyone who objected – Congressional representatives or airline presidents – would be seen as anti-safety. It was a public relations problem with no solution. This industry was just damned and its condemnation laid the groundwork for a similar safety crisis in the 1990s. The latter crisis ultimately led to the unwarranted single-level-of-safety rule, the consequent increase in operating costs and the abandonment of hundreds of communities that had once been the bread and butter of the industry. Related Story
But, it is a measure of how much has changed that the focus has almost entirely been on the major carriers. Be that as it may, we still have to worry about what the National Safety Inspection Review Teams come up with.