joel payne

Computer has been down, so hope this is not old news-

Gulfstream Airlines contests FAA fine
Tuesday June 16, 2009
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Gulfstream International Airlines yesterday released its response to US FAA's proposed $1.3 million civil penalty for improper scheduling and the installation of an unapproved component on its 1900Ds, admitting several schedule and recordkeeping errors but challenging the fine and citing "differences in interpretation" and its 20-plus years of accident-free operations in its defense.

The carrier said "information presented to the FAA during the 2008 inspection could have been confusing" and that it revamped its recordkeeping processes last year in all cases (ATWOnline, May 18). It further asserted that none of the agency's findings involved "safety-of-flight issues."

It admitted that one pilot accidentally was scheduled for eight consecutive days, one more than the limit, but flew on only six days, and said none of the 10 discrepancies between pilot logs and automated records involved illegal flight time. It said payroll records reflecting nonflight hr. contributed to the confusion and denied any dispatcher scheduling errors. It said it "believes the two maintenance practices cited by the FAA were handled properly and were not violations."

"While we may respectfully disagree with the FAA's findings of violations in many cases, we do agree that any error is one too many," President and CEO Dave Hackett said. "Beginning last summer, we immediately instituted daily flight record audits for 100% of our flights to prevent any future recordkeeping errors."


by Brian Straus

SmoothOnTop

Wow!

In contrast, WN really caught a break in a very light fine...

The Juice

Lets do some math

$1,300,000 / $24,990 = ~52 new FO's needed to buy a job to pay the fine.

rightside02

talked to a friend who works at Gulfstream and actually knows quite a bit about the fines that FAA proposed and a very large chunk of fines were from over blocking and having pilots work more than 16 hour duty days etc. There were acusations of pilots flying 22 hour duty days and flying for over 16 hours in a day ( block) etc. Statements about ex chief pilot not having a day off in over 90 days. Statements of crew schedulers being on duty for more than 10 hours etc. The above cant be true no matter how much someone doesnt like GIA. No chief pilot would not have a day off in over 90 days. think about it.....

Weather it be a lack of records keeping or the worst airline track computer program , most of these fines are actually not holding up what so ever. sure there are guilty of several things, but in the end he said that the fine will actually be very small. Nothing near the 1.3 claimed.

2cents

okonokos

Wait wait wait... Crew schedulers have better rest requirements than pilots? That my friend, is ironic.

paxhauler85

Dispatchers too.

Seems sitting behind a desk is just as tough and fatiguing as flying 5 legs over 14 hours (duty) through weather and mechanical issues.

rightside02

said the same exact thing when i heard it myself. But yep 121 rules. Sucks for sure but then again sounds about right with most of the rules that are in existence