Congressional hearings made it clear that Congress is worried about the race to the bottom line and whether or not it has an impact on safety. Why else, they asked, would pilots be paid so little? Why else would they not be trained properly?

PBS Frontline's Rick Young wondered whether, in addition to the airlines both large and small, passengers themselves weren’t partially to blame for demanding such low fares – fares that are lower than they were thirty years ago and don’t including an inch of inflationary pressure over that time.

Of course that answer is far too easy. The major airline business model is broken with profitability a rarity. And what profits that are made are quickly eaten up by down cycles which result in the loss of all the profits they made in the good times and then some. I explained to Young, to my knowledge, no study has ever established a relationship between safety and profitability but certainly the issue has been well discussed since the 1980s with Eastern’s fight with its mechanics who alleged just that.

I also explained the issue was irrelevant. While the majors were bleeding red ink, their regional airline counterparts were doing quite well making profits hand over fist and enjoying healthy 8% to 10% profit margins. Forged during the post-9/11 period, these capacity purchase agreements contributed both to growth and profitability as major carriers restructured in the wake of the tragedy shedding routes helter skelter in favor of their regional partners. Regional presidents can tell Wall Street all they want that these contracts won’t expire for years, and are rock solid, but the reality is they have already begun compromising those contracts as a result of the economic crisis. Many are at minimums if not below them. As for the regionals, they have little choice but to become part of the solution to major-carrier fiscal problems.

However much Congress may want to blame the regionals for allegedly short changing on pilot pay and training, it is not for lack of money. As for the passengers, while they may complain about the deterioration of airline service they are finally being given what they are paying for with their discount tickets and thus should not be surprised that they are charged fees right, left and center. The fares and fees combined don’t even pay the freight as witnessed by the $10.2 billion in revnue raised worldwide by fees last year and the expected $11 billion worldwide industry loss, $2 billion deeper than originally projected for the year by the International Air Transport Association which revised its estimates on Tuesday.

But what does that mean for safety? Congress and passengers are rightly asking whether or not the majors should be responsible for the safety and training of their regional partners even when they are not owned. This, too, is an old issue; one that was to have been solved by a single level of safety.

The major carriers have been dodging this one for two decades since the advent of code-sharing when Congress said, as a result of computer reservations system issues, they needed to tell passengers when they would be flying a regional partner rather than a major citing how this bait-and-switch practice was anti-consumer. It arose again after the ATR accident at Roselawn in 1994, a watershed in so many ways. However, the issue was finally put to rest as the major carriers noted it was not their responsibility to police their partners. Instead, they rightly said, it is the responsibility of the FAA to police these companies. But, as we have seen, that is a problematic assumption.

What concerns me is the majors have taken complete responsibility for their regional partners on the service side. They dictate schedules and fares. They dictate performance standards and some contracts include penalties for failure to perform.

That then begs the question asked by Congress and the consumer as to the major carriers’ responsibility on safety. “Wait,” said Congress during last summer’s hearings. “You slap your livery on their aircraft and give them the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval with your good name. You dictate everything on the service side from which you earn revenues but you take no responsibility in ensuring passenger safety? What’s that about?” And, I’ve now concluded that in an era in which we are supposed to be providing redundant safety systems and robust data analysis, I agree.

Ironically, in their drive toward globalized alliances, they have taken on the responsibility for passenger safety with what type of airline they allow to join such alliances. They boast of their strict safety and quality standards that must be met to join the worldwide alliances..

Given this, and the intertwined major/regional services, I am convinced that the industry’s current cavalier attitude is no longer tenable major carriers may finally have to do what they have been dodging all these years. Certainly, that is what Congress is seeking, especially since both regionals and majors boast of a single level of safety. Clearly, they meet all the same regs, but what is on paper did meet up with the reality revealed by the Colgan 3407.

Regionals Victims of Political Theatre?
Why do regionals take center stage? After the tragic events of 9/11 memorialized on its eighth anniversary last Friday, regionals took on an ever growing role in airline service and it is that, more than anything else, that woke people up to its so-called dangers, suggests Frontline’s Young. As I’ve said in a previous commentaries, passengers have long known that regionals played a large role, but they were not aware of how large a role they had, as evidenced by all the post-crash stories in February. Analysis: Regional Issues at Center of Buffalo Crash

And that, quite frankly, was the reason that the Roselawn took center stage at a time when there were three other accidents that year – two major carrier (US Airways Charlotte & Pittsburgh) and American Eagle at Raleigh – all of which were operating under Part 121 requirements, ostensibly a single level of safety before the single-level-of-safety rule was a gleam in the FAA’s eye.

Why was everybody so upset about the ATR when the two US Airways accidents had killed more people? Why was everyone so upset about the ATR when it was the subject of an as yet unknown icing phenomenon when the 737 had had more than one fatal accident attributed to its emerging rudder problem?

Because it was the first time people woke up to the fact that a regional airliner could kill so many people in one shot. The problems with Flight 3407 were so egregious and shocking, that a bigger story – the regional airline role in airline service and their safety – took over.

While it was experiencing this unprecedented growth since 2000, the industry had six accidents and, unlike Colgan, they were accepted as just “these things happen but they don’t mean a systemic industry problem.” Nor did they blacken the industry. Unfortunately, Chalk’s Miami accident owing to metal fatigue and maintenance issues, the ferry accident at Pinnacle and the taxi-way launch by Comair at Lexington, do reinforce the stereotypes of regionals as being old, fly-by-night puddle jumpers, flown by rookie pilots.

Monday: Frontline Focuses on Regionals: Assigning Blame – Part II