DAL 88 Driver

I sent the following letter to my congressional representatives yesterday. I used the "Call to Action" link on the ALPA web site to send this. In writing this letter, I started out with the form letter under "Airline Safety - Training", changed the title to "Airline Safety", and then added another aspect to the letter talking about what has happened to our profession and why it is a safety issue.

Anyway, feel free to use my letter as a basis for your own letter to your representatives. I am also considering forwarding this letter to various news media outlets.

Here's the letter:

Airline Safety

I am a major airline Captain with 32 years of flying experience, a member of the Air Line Pilots Association, and your constituent. I am very concerned about the conditions which have been brought to light by the NTSB hearings following the Colgan Air Flight 3407 accident near Buffalo, NY. While it is a terrible tragedy, I am hopeful that we can learn about the realities surrounding the accident and bring safety back as the true number one priority in the airline industry.

There are two chief factors that I believe are central to the root cause of this accident: The current state of the airline pilot profession, and airline pilot training. Excessive cost cutting throughout the airline industry is, in my opinion, responsible for both of these problems.

The current state of the airline pilot profession is such that it is now very difficult to attract quality entrants to the profession. Many people do not realize just how badly this profession has been decimated in the last few years. For example, the pilots at my airline took a 42% pay cut, lost our pension, and have had thousands of our jobs outsourced to regional carriers. Most other major airline pilots have experienced similar cuts and losses to their career outlook. When you combine that with the poverty wages being paid to new regional airline pilots, the ability to attract quality individuals to this profession gets even worse.

It used to be that airline pilots came from basically two categories: Military and civilian.

Pilots left the military for the airlines because the pay and benefits were better. Now, there is very little reason for a military pilot to leave the military and go to an airline. That is one very high quality source of pilots that is basically no longer available to the airlines.

The biggest source of civilian airline pilots has been the regional, or "commuter", airlines. This kind of flying is extremely challenging (in some cases more so than major airline flying) and is done using the same basic rules and regulations and in the same type of operating environment as the major airlines. This makes for excellent experience and background for a major airline candidate.

Making what amounts to poverty wages at a regional airline (after going into significant debt to obtain the necessary pilot ratings and qualifications) used to be considered part of "building experience" and/or "paying dues" for the career. The only reason we have had such high quality individuals willing to endure this is because the major airlines had excellent pay and benefits, and therefore the overall value of a pilot's career was high. Now, the overall value of a pilot's career is about HALF of what it used to be. It should be obvious to even the most casual observer that the old saying, "you get what you pay for", applies here. I do not believe that severely cutting pilot costs like this industry has, which ultimately has the effect of lowering ticket prices by only a few dollars each, is more important than even one person's life.

Airline pilot training is also a serious concern for all airline pilots. A well trained flight crew is the single most important safety asset in commercial aviation. Pilot training should be regarded as an investment in the safety of the flying public. It must take into account the various backgrounds and experience levels of new pilots. Pilot training needs to emphasize meaningful experiences in realistic situations rather than simply performing a list of tasks for a test. Airline pilot training should never be sacrificed for cost-saving measures.

Even though this excessive cost cutting is prevalent throughout the airline industry, regional airlines are especially sensitive to this pressure. They compete for contracts offered by major carriers. Downward pricing pressure is very intense. These contracts are usually short term and are renewed on a continuously revolving basis, so as to keep costs down to the lowest bidder. This is somewhat understandable from a business point of view but, in this case, it is ultimately short sighted.

There is a point where cost pressure is affecting airline safety. In an effort to lower costs, the time allowed for pilot training has been steadily shrinking. Airline training departments schedule the minimum possible time to meet only the minimum FAA requirements. Often, pilots are trained to perform a long list of tasks under a compressed timeframe. Extra time spent in the aircraft simulator is discouraged, and the emphasis can often be on passing the test rather than building meaningful experiences.

More realistic training should include responding to surprising or unplanned abnormal events that occur in normal, realistic situations. Much research has already been done to support the effectiveness of this type of training. It is called “Line Oriented Flight Training” and should be greatly expanded in pilot training curriculums.

Pilots learn best by doing and practicing. This requires the time and flexibility to tailor the training to the individual, accounting for differences in backgrounds and experience levels. Unfortunately, most regional airline training departments will not spend the resources on this type of training unless it is mandated by the FAA.

Please consider supporting legislation that would enhance pilot training requirements and mandate more experience based training in airline training departments. I also ask that, whenever you have the opportunity, you should hold the FAA and airline management accountable for once again making safety the number one priority in this industry.

I look forward to learning your views on this crucial issue. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Biddy

Great letter. Very well written. I am going to send it to my reps in DC as well...

Cruise

I like it.

Serious question....in your opinion (and anyone else who would like to comment), do you think the industry would turn around for the positive w/ some form of re-regulation? I do!

From my perspective, the airlines have shown they do not have an ability to regulate themselves in a responsible manner. Pay, work rules, pensions...and dare I say it, safety, have been in a spin towards the blue juice since 1978. I don't believe there will ever be a recovery without some form of regulation. What type, I'm not sure yet.....but I do believe help is desperately needed.

Anyone else?

rickair7777

Thanks, that sums it up quite well. I've been working on one too, but I think I'll just use a version of yours.

rickair7777

I think some degree of re-regulation would be good. We already know that some services and industries must either be regulated or performed by the government (financial, law enforcement). We found out not too long ago that free-market power generation/distribution can have catastrophic results...airlines are pretty much the same. Of course 50 people dieing in buffalo generates a lot less voter outrage then 5 hours without air conditioning in July...

If you want safe and reliable, pure free-market forces will not provide that on a consistent basis.

wally24

That was a well written letter. I think the best part is that you did not throw the regional pilots under the bus; you spoke on behalf of the pilot profession as a whole. I feel like there are alot of people with your experience level who have a tendency to criticize the regionals as inexperienced and underqualified. Believe me there are some underqualified pilots out there, but I feel they are in the minority at this point.

As far as regulation goes, this industry is already pretty highly regulated, in a sense. Alot of airports are slot controlled, lack gate space and monitored by the FAA. I believe in free market capitalism but the airline industry is the furthest thing from a free market. There are huge barriers to entry, high startup costs, and alot of restrictions mentioned earlier. I think regulation would be a good idea in this market.

I guess my question is to what extent should this industry be regulated? Will it translate to higher pay for pilots or higher profit margins for shareholders? Would it be better to regulate pilot pay instead, possibly on a similar pay scale to military pay?

2Co2Fur1EXwife

Excellent. Maybe add the pay MUST come up in the closing statements.

Herkulesdrvr

Dal,

Great letter, however, with the current state of the airline business I dont see how a politician is going to have any meaningful influence on this subject. This industry is based on profits and most airlines are NOT profiting, hence the downward spiral. Dont get me wrong I totally agree with what you are saying but I just have very little confidence in our elected officials and their priorities.

There needs to be some type of incentive to stay in this career and I think there needs to be some type of national seniority list. Its ridiculous for a 58 year old captain to go backwards if his company goes out of business and is then subsequently hired by another carrier only to be an F.O. for the rest of his career. If you were to get a seniority number the day you were hired in a part 121 operation or something to that effect then there would be some incentive to stay in the business.

As a prior military pilot we had pay scales based on years of service and rank, period. Our pay didnt decrease if we changed aircraft, move bases or change jobs. I think if the airlines had a system in place like this then at least some stability would return to this profession.

TOGA LK

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.

DAL 88 Driver

Great post, TOGA. The "connection carrier" and code share situation in this industry amounts to a "bait and switch" tactic. It is absolutely ridiculous that this is allowed to continue. The only good thing I see is that the frequent fliers are starting to catch on and book away from these flights. Note: that's actually a bad thing for us in the short term but maybe it will get the attention of the idiot bean counters we have running the airlines these days and they will fix the problem. In the meantime, companies like SWA and AirTran will continue to benefit from the customers we are driving away.

I also agree with your comments on training. The training I experienced at both American Eagle and TWA was superior to the training I experienced as a new hire at Delta and far superior to our current training. Airline management can rationalize it all they want, but the bottom line is that they are reducing safety margins to save costs.