The October 4 shut down of AMI Jet Charter signals a significant action by the FAA since it targeted one of the industry’s most highly regarded operators, and should be considered a wake-up call to all charter operators to ensure their operational control practices meet regulations, according to National Business Aircraft Association (NBAA) President Ed Bolen. The organization called the issue especially critical for any charter operation but especially so for the developing VLJ charter operations.
The FAA suspended AMI Jet Charter's (AMIJC) Part 135 Air Carrier Certificate pending demonstration that it has a fully compliant operational control system. It must demonstrate exactly who is responsible for the safe operation of flights. The action comes at the end of an extensive, seven-month review of AMIJC as part of the recently revised A008 Operational Control Specification.
The response from the National Air Transportation Association (NATA) was anger. “NATA believes that this action is driven more by arrogance and a failure to understand how Part 135 is different from Part 121 than by true concerns about the safety of operations conducted on AMI aircraft,” NATA President Jim Coyne told members. “I am extremely angered by the Federal Aviation Administration's decision to revoke the operating certificate of AMI Jet Charter, based in Burlingame, Calif. NATA has worked very closely with FAA safety officials since operational control became a hot issue more than two years ago.
“Operational control concerns arose in the wake of the Challenger 604 accident at Teterboro Airport in February, 2005,” he explained. “Specifically, the FAA raised concerns with the operational control procedures of the aircraft operator involved in the accident, Platinum Jet Management. Sadly, while we believe officials within the FAA's safety office have been forthright and willing to work with AMI, a select few attorneys at the agency have taken it upon themselves to act to suspend and now revoke AMI's certificate despite evidence of AMI's efforts to ensure compliance with the FAA's frequently changing standards. These attorneys have essentially derailed the operations of one of the biggest and best Part 135 certificate holders in the country for reasons other than safety.”
NATA indicated that AMIJC filed an appeal with NTSB, saying the emergency revocation was unnecessary since no emergency existed. It also rebutted several FAA assertions against the company, 49 percent of which is owned by Tag Aviation.
"We are confident that we can demonstrate AMIJC's outstanding safety record to the FAA and our continued commitment to full compliance with all applicable regulations and procedures,” said CEO Chuck McLeran, citing the company’s safety record as well as its consistently receiving the Platinum rating from Aviation Research Group/US. "We intend to work with the FAA so we can address these issues and continue doing what we do best — serving our customers with the high caliber of safety and service they have come to expect. Working with the FAA, we believe these issues can be resolved at the earliest possible time.”
The action, as well as FAA’s lengthy review of charter operations, echoes similar moves against the regional airlines during the 1980s, when FAA was unable to keep up with industry growth. The FAA’s significant focus on the on-demand, charter industry has led some to question how to determine if any particular flight meets the specific regulatory requirements for operational control. The agency discovered that, in some cases, the lack of clarity in an operational control agreement prompted uncertainty about the qualifications of the parties involved with the operation of an aircraft.
Since then, both NATA and NBAA, in what NBAA called unprecedented work with the FAA, has been developing new operational control requirements workable for industry, and educating the industry about their introduction. In the past two years, the association worked with FAA and facilitated seminars across the country. The result was the creation of a compliance checklist that identifies areas of importance and focus for the FAA that can be used by Part 135 air carriers as a quick means to audit a flight or series of flights to verify, or identify gaps in, compliance with regulations and OpSpec A008 which is available on its web site. web.nbaa.org/public/ops/part135/wetlease/
During the 1980s, FAA shut down several regional airlines, including some of the largest and most respected, for not complying with the FARs. Also prompted by an accident, FAA created Tiger teams to audit carriers, ultimately shutting some down for following the FAA-approved manuals because headquarters over-ruled the FAR interpretations of the local inspector office.
With the regional inspections, the action was more political, than addressing an industry-wide safety problem, in an effort to prove it was overseeing the growing industry properly. Even so, the industry set about improving its operating practices to the point that by the early 1990s, its safety record mirrored of their major carrier counterparts.
Despite having achieved that goal, the industry came under attack in the mid 1990s after a series of Part 121 accidents, including the crash of an ATR 72 at Halloween in Roselawn, Ind. Although the accidents – two at major carriers and two at regionals – all happened at airlines operating under Part 121, political pressure focused on the then turbo-prop industry and resulted in the completely unnecessary Single-Level-of-Safety rule, under which all commercial carriers operating aircraft of 10 or more seats were required to adhere to the same standards governing their major-carrier counterparts.
It was the single, over-riding factor that changed the face of the airline industry and made it impossible for a new generation of airlines to do what airlines have always done in the wake of massive abandonment by larger carriers – replace them. Worse, the so-called the commuter rule has not achieved the goals of reducing the accident rate in the decade since it was mandated. In fact, it has done just the opposite while costing airlines millions in increased operating costs and communities billions in lost economic activity. Related Story
Statistics reveal the single-level-of-safety rule was a rulemaking that never needed to happen. Based on NTSB statistics, after the rule change, 1996 – 2001, the accident rate for 10- to 30-seat airliners under the more restrictive rules of FAR Part 121 saw that rate escalate to 5.83 accidents annually, while the accident rate for one-to-nine-seat aircraft operating under FAR Part 135 during this period was 6.0 accidents, which, according to Regional Aviation Partners, which produced the study, is statistically identical to the rate before the rule change.
“Clearly, operating under a more strenuous rule was not the solution” said RAP. “The accident rate per 100,000 departures under FAR Part 121 has seen a sharp increase exceeding 250 percent. The improvement in the safety record of Part 135 operations is not a statistical fluke. To the contrary, this improvement has been significant in its magnitude and long-term in its duration.”
In its rulemaking, FAA said the rule would prevent 94 accidents and estimated a benefit of $393 million versus a cost of $275 million over 10 years. Ninety four accidents? Even in its worst period, regional airlines never approached that accident rate. In computing the need for this initiative, the FAA failed to use its standard methodology and, instead, relied on a broad-based accident rate rather than calculations based on specific types of preventable accidents, according to RAP. For complete coverage of this issue click here.
Had it not been for that rule, however, the growth of the air taxi industry would likely not be what it is today. The rule increased the cost of providing airline service so much that many points became uneconomical to serve and dropped off the national air transportation map, including many points that had previously been profitable and were served without subsidy.
Ironically, in addressing what can be done about the dearth of small community air service, the General Accountability Office supported controlling escalating operating costs by better matching capacity with community use by increasing use of smaller aircraft; i.e., aircraft with less than 10 seats, which would, of course, represent a return to the old commuter rules.
DOT concurred since its analysis revealed that most EAS aircraft fly largely empty. In an incredible display of crosswise logic, DOT suggested using smaller aircraft, despite the fact it acknowledged the Commuter Safety Initiative was the primary cause of the increase in operating expenses for small commuter carriers. The wildly escalating costs wrought by the commuter rule, eliminated their ability to serve these points.
It is unclear what the new A008 rule will cost the industry. It is clear, however, that operations in which the aircraft owner supplies the pilot is now deemed a wet lease and is illegal under a little recognized rule that was part of the single-level-of-safety rule. Part 119.53.B transferred the wet leasing requirements of scheduled operations on to non-scheduled Part 135 operations. The accident at Teterboro led to a realization that some flights were illegal under this provision. In fact, no one really noticed the rule change meant operations in which crew was supplied with the aircraft were actually illegal wet leases.
FAA’s investigation of industry practices revealed three levels of operations – the good, the bad, and the ugly, according to an industry source who provided information on background, owing to the fact the current situation with charter operators is so fluid. The ugly, he said, were those who knowingly violated the rule renting out their certificate and abandoning all responsibility as a certificate holder. The good were aircraft owners who conducted 135 flights that did not meet the requirements of Part 135 for charter flights. While few of those were identified, most, according to the source, came under the bad category in which it was clear someone should have had operational control of the flight but did not.
This realization prompted industry action and ultimately resulted in the guidance published by NBAA clarifying operational control, which had been fairly ambiguous. It is those guidelines to which operators should look when facing the special emphasis inspections now being conducted by FAA, which hopes to complete its industry-wide review by the end of the year.