skywatch, I think you may have lost track of the "thread" of this thread, and perhaps I've confused you with a smattering of sarcasm. I am quite familiar with the FAA's version of SMS, described in Advisory Circulars, the genesis and trajectory of the components of the FAA's SMS, and I spent quite a bit of my time and energy as a pilot union representative trying to convince our company to take their discipline hooks out of those programs so we could agree to them and implement them at FedEx Express.

Perhaps a little background will help. What you might not know is that after agreeing to ASAP, LOSA, FOQA, and FRMP, as well as converting all of our Appendix F training programs to AQP, FedEx decided on its own, and without the cooperation or buy-in from the pilots, to implement this program they call QA, and have recruited observers to ride along in cockpits and conduct QA observations. One category of observers is Fleet Check Airmen -- Captains who are qualified to conduct line checks on their respective aircraft types. The other is Observers -- First Officers who are qualified to breathe. A change to our FOM makes it mandatory that we allow the first category (Fleet Check Airmen) on the flight deck to conduct the observations. No such requirement exists to grant access to the FO Observers. It sounds a lot like the LOSA program we have, except that FedEx does not plan to share the information they collect during these observations, and they assert the right to use these observations as the basis for increased scrutiny, additional training, and even discipline of the pilots they observe.

This thread began with a question about the QA observations, and then a comment and a related question, and then an assertion injected by 3pointlanding that the program is "a requirement." Here we are some 120 posts later, and most of my energy has been directed at the "YES, it's a requirement. NO. It's not" argument. I maintain that the particular program implemented by FedEx Express, the program they call QA, is NOT required by any authority or entity. 3pointlanding has yet to produce a shred of evidence to prove otherwise.


First, there IS such a thing as a US SMS program. It is not required, but it is defined. We've linked the Advisory Circular (and its expired predecessor) more than once in this thread, but I'll do it again. Previously, my purpose in linking was to demonstrate that SMS is not mandatory. While that is still true, the purpose of linking now is to show that such a program does in fact exist.

Advisory Circular No. 120-92A "Safety Management Systems for Aviation Service Providers"

For our current conversation, Paragraph 2.b. is instructive:
So, while the FAA does not yet require an SMS (and we can stop right there to disprove 3pointlanding's initial and continued assertion), the FAA does recognize SMS and has provided some initial guidance for those entities who would voluntarily implement an SMS.

I'm a little embarrassed to mention this, but your link, you know, the link to an authoritative source that says I'm wrong ... it's a Blog. That's hardly an authoritative source, and it doesn't address the point about which you said I was wrong.

Lots of posts, lots of conversations intertwined, perhaps we got confused, perhaps we forgot our place in the dialog, let me refresh our memory.

The author, Jason Starke, worked for Universal Weather & Aviation as the Safety Management & Integration Operations Manager. It should come as no surprise that he would, in his blog, encourage corporate operators (the target audience) to seek help from ... let's think about this for a sec ... Universal Weather & Aviation in developing an SMS. Of course, he was a bit more discreet -- he said, "work with a 3rd-party provider."

So, now we have the "QA is a requirement/No, it's not" conversation, and the "SMS doesn't exist/Yes, it does" conversation", and I'll try to keep from getting confused about which one I'm in.

We agree that SMS is not an FAA requirement, yet many aviation service providers have robust SMS programs. Right?

So, in the context of one of those robust SMS programs, and I believe FedEx's SMS program to be on the verge of robust if not there already, can we also agree that no particular program is required?

Allow me to quote the rest of your post out of order, and go back and grab a quote from a previous post.
Again, and going back to the Advisory Circular, the how is not as important as the what of the programs. At FedEx, the LOSA program is one of the hows we use to take care of one of the whats. Pilots, the FAA, and FedEx have agreed to the program, and we share the information collected and we all benefit from it.

FedEx is attempting to implement a different how, their QA program, for the same what, but they are doing it on their own, with no buy-in from the pilots, and no mechanism to share the data to be collected.

Can they claim it's part of their SMS? Sure. Can they claim it's a required part of SMS, as 3pointlanding continues to assert? No.


It appears to me from studying the ACs and the proposed CFR that the FAA will not decide what it looks like -- they will tell us what it needs to do.

I don't believe I said our QA program has nothing to do with an SMS program. What I have repeatedly said is that FedEx's QA program is not REQUIRED by any SMS program. They can institute a Saturday morning 3-mile-run program as part of their SMS if they want, but it's not REQUIRED.

The funny thing about proving a negative is you can't. However, it only takes one example to disprove it. Still, I do not believe that our QA program has "nothing to do with SMS", so I'm not in a position where I need to prove a negative.

3pointlanding, on the other hand, is asserting a positive -- the QA program IS REQUIRED by SMS. That should be simple to prove, if it's true, with one authoritative source. (By authoritative, I mean a government agency that has regulatory authority, not a Company manual, or a commercial blog.) You'll notice he still hasn't provided any such evidence.


Now, let me go back and clean up a couple more items that I believe may have confused you, one phrase at a time.


I think we agree that SMS (the FAA's version) is voluntary. Some Companies actually see the value of a robust safety program as opposed to a program designed to only produce eyewash and placate the very minimum regulatory requirements. All companies look at balance sheets and bottom lines. Some companies -- I guess they have specially talented accountants -- include the value of a real safety program along with the costs.


Here's where my sarcasm might have thrown you off a bit.

After the crash of Colgan Air Flight 3407, Congress was heavily lobbied by the families of the victims, and Congress took a renewed interest in a broad range of safety topics, including training, fatigue, and safety programs. Included in H.R. 5900 - "Airline Safety and Federal Aviation Administration Extension Act of 2010" are requirements placed on the FAA to report to Congress.

Section 212. Pilot Fatigue, placed a requirement on air carriers to "submit to the Administrator for review and acceptance a fatigue risk management plan for the carrier’s pilots" not later than 90 days after the enactment of the act. There are more requirements, and many specifics described in the section, but I don't need to delve into that now.

Section 213. Voluntary Safety Programs, placed a requirement on the Administrator to report, not later than 180 days after enactment of the act, to Congress (the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the Senate) about the ASAP, FOQA, LOSA, and AQP. Included in the report was to be a list of which carriers were using the programs, and which were not, and for those that weren't, the reasons they weren't using them.

Here's a link to that report: Federal Aviation Administration Voluntary Safety Programs Response to P.L. 111-216, Sec. 213 (January 28, 2011)

Now, if you browse through that document, you'll see that FedEx had a LOSA program, and we were using AQP, but we had no ASAP and no FOQA program. In fact, we were the largest airline without one, by far.

Now, Mr. Smith likes the people in D.C., and he's made a lot of hay by getting them to see things his way, but this was just a little embarrassing because not only did they all see they he didn't have an ASAP, but they needed to know why not. The why not boiled down to FedEx not being able to relinquish the reach they wanted to be able to use the data gathered to discipline pilots, and the pilots' union, understandably, was not willing to risk a single pilot's livelihood for a voluntary safety program. ALPA was firm in this position, and held out until the pressure brought to bear by Congress helped FedEx see things more clearly.


And here's where your lack of familiarity with the specifics at FedEx may have left you confused about what I was saying.
Well, the FAA's report to Congress came out in January, and we were in RLA Section 6 negotiations with FedEx for an improved contract. Wouldn't you know it, suddenly FedEx wanted to agree to our terms on FOQA, ASAP, and FRMP -- all required by public law -- and they wanted to do it via a Collective Bargaining Agreement that would close Section 6 negotiations for at least another year, and more realistically two years. All three programs could have been implemented via Letter of Agreement or Memorandum of Understanding, signed by officials of all three parties (FAA was the third, of course), and taken effect immediately. Instead, they chose to hold the CBA hostage and require membership vote on the package deal with the caveat that we can't get those important safety programs unless we agree to the whole CBA.

FedEx was motivated by the FAA and Congress to implement the "voluntary" safety programs, and the pilots were snookered into accepting a sub-par contract in the process.

I hope that clears things up.




On this we certainly agree.






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