Originally Posted by
smoothatFL410
That dude seriously has it out for Allegiant, that's for sure. And he almost sounds like he knows what he's talking about regarding dealing with the FAA. I read his report and I see the Company working proactively and seriously both with the FAA and with former FAA employs to ENSURE that they are doing things right, and this guy spins it as something coerce and deceptive, like Allegiant is buying off the FAA. It's unfair. I've been here less than a year and missed all of the drama, but I can definitely say that at least on the Airbus side, Allegiant's completely legit and SAFE regarding maintenance and FAR / SOP compliance. You can see the dedication of everyone. Yes, sh1t happens. As in any airline. And from my point of view, it all has been handled completely professionally and with integrity. I'd call it if I saw it, and I'm not seeing anything innate.
I've worked for shady operators in the past. MORE than one. My last employer made a habit of calling pilots cell phone to cell phone so the line was not recorded, to try to talk them into not writing aircraft up, or down right threatening if they did or called fatigue. So yes, I know shady. My experience at Allegiant has been extremely positive, I've seen nothing shady and I'm proud to be a part of it.
I do know that life on the Airbus is completely different than the MD-80, but we will soon be an all-Airbus fleet, and we're ready.
Face palm. This new guy really doesn't have a clue. If you haven't seen anything shady it's because you're an FO and don't deal with maintenance, ever. And you don't know the history or all the bad things that happened at Allegiant over the past 5+ years.
The Tampa Bay Times are absolutely correct. Allegiant continually gives them bad stuff to report on and they do their job by reporting it. I am immensely grateful their reporter is doing such a thorough job pointing out Allegiant Air's maintenance deficiencies because they are numerous and they are often serious. Equally disturbing is how the Allegiant management had repeatedly denied the problems or tried to deflect blame away from the company.
Finally, after years of potentially dangerous problems and many many news articles, after denying that Allegiant even had a problem and trying to deflect blame onto the pilots and their union, Allegiant management seems to have relented and are trying to improve our maintenance program. It's long overdue and the coming improvement can definitely be credited to all the negative press Allegiant received over the past few years.
This airline was headed down a dangerous path of serious mx deficiencies including numerous engine failures and loss of pressurization events. The TBT finally was able to compare the failures to other airlines and found out that our serious incident rate was more than 4x higher than any other airline in the country. That is terrible record and there's no sugar coating it.
That is why I am grateful to that TBT reporter. He may have saved lives by reporting just how bad Allegiant maintenance really was. He may have saved our jobs as well.