That's a good write. I would also suggest legislation that would restrict the issuance of "new" 121 operating certificates; essentially if an airline fails the certificate is revoked and a replacement is never reissued. We have 20 times the number of airlines most countries have. There would be plenty enough room for capitalism with even just five total 121 certificates in the country. I think Delta alone has 9 DCI carriers? Is there not enough competition with Sprint, Verizon, ATT and T-mobile. Sure there are many more smaller companies, but four main carriers is more than enough for fair competition.
Several years back the FAA stopped issuing 135 certificates and went as far to mandate that pilots must actually be on the certificates payroll; implementing such regulation would not be impossible.
Long ago even Crandall stated that code sharing was simply a form of deception. If we could carefully construct legislation that targeted deception then perhaps the flying public would stand a chance of getting what they pay for.
Just recently I commuted to DTW from LAX. I sat next to a nice lady who intentionally purchased a ticket on delta.com. She thought she was purchasing a ticket on Delta airlines from Portland, OR to DTW and expected that level of service. What she actually recieved was a code share on Alaska from Portland to LAX and another form of a codeshare on NWA from LAX to DTW, she never once flew on Delta equipment. She wasn't very impressed with the cloth seats and lack of entertainment on her 5 hour NWA segment. I know this will change come January, but still serves as an example of codesharing.
On my last vacation I took my wife to visit the in-laws in DFW. We listed for non-rev in dlnet and flew RJs from LAX to SLC to DFW. One leg in there had a 737. Now Skywest provides a great product, but still the majority of the flying was contracted out. Even while standing in the Skywest terminal at SLC, one would have no clue that they left the Delta terminal as Delta marketing has plastered every square inch of the walls, deception.
We need truth in contracting legislation that makes it blatantly obvious when an airline service is being contracted out. I personally don't feel that a small statement at the bottom of the ticket or small lettering on the side of the aircraft stating "Operated by Skywest Airlines" is sufficient. 99% of the time you can't even see the aircraft when boarding via a jet bridge.
My .02
I personally felt that the training at American Eagle was better than either of the two long term trainings I attended at FNWA. Granted the training at Eagle was Appendix F, but all the instructors were fully qualified, experienced line pilots, no ATIs. We spent hours in the classroom applying performance data and FOM guidelines to the aircraft we were training on. The sim sessions were geared towards teaching the aicraft, smashing buttons and becoming proficient. At NWA I always felt like the training program was built with an 85% bell curve and intentionally trimmed down to that level to save a few bucks. It also seemed like half the sim session was spent on position freeze reading books. IMHO, not all regional training suffers.
Last edited by TOGA LK; 10-07-2009 at 08:58 AM.