APC225

Interview with former Pan Am dispatcher William McGee author of "Attention All Passengers."

Mostly about outsourced maintenance, but has some remarks about pilots late in interview.

Why Flying Is No Fun (And May Be More Dangerous) : NPR

June 27, 2012
After the airline industry was deregulated in 1978, flying changed considerably.

Some of those changes have improved commercial flying, but others have made the skies much less friendly, says journalist and airline veteran William J. McGee.

McGee's new book, Attention All Passengers, details how airlines are cutting costs through regional carriers, outsourcing airline maintenance, mishandling baggage and overbooking airplanes.

"It's not your imagination that there are more people flying on each flight," he tells Fresh Air's Dave Davies. "The average percentage of occupied seats on a plane these days is over 80 percent. That means a great number of flights are at 100 percent. [That has] led to all of the other problems related to service: delays, canceled flights, lost baggage, consumer complaints and passengers being involuntarily bumped off flights. ... Flying is just not a pleasant experience."

Among those functions that have been outsourced: everything from maintenance to customer service to baggage handling, says McGee.

"I don't think many passengers realize that when they're in an airport and there's some sort of a problem, and they walk up to a ticket counter and they're talking to someone who's wearing the uniform of an airline employee, that in many cases they're not [talking to] an airline employee," he says.

Aircraft maintenance and repairs are also frequently outsourced — in some cases to unlicensed mechanics in China, Singapore, Mexico and El Salvador.

"In my view, it's a critical safety issue — the FAA's lack of oversight of maintenance [in these countries]," he says. "It used to be, if an airline had a major maintenance facility, the FAA had an office, and an inspector could pop by anytime. Now, with work being done [overseas], I've had dozens of inspectors express their frustration that they can't do their jobs. They're monitoring this work on an honor system."

Mechanics have told McGee that planes come back from their maintenance trips and are not ready to fly.

"Among the problems they've talked about are doors that were not sealed properly. ... There are problems with engines that have had to be shut down, and there are serious problems that have led to smoke in the cabin," he says. "And any time you have smoke in the cabin, that could lead to catastrophe. These airplanes are coming back in conditions where additional work needs to be done to get them back online, in many cases."

The Federal Aviation Administration does not require airlines to list the subcontractors they work with. And finding out that information can be quite difficult, says McGee.

"Independent government organizations, including the Government Accountability Office and the Department of Transportation's Inspector General's Office, have gone to the airlines and said, 'Where is the work being done and who's doing it?' " says McGee.

"And the airlines, amazingly, have responded that they're not clear, in some cases. To me, this is just mind-boggling. ... Congressional testimony has shown that the FAA does not even have a full sense of where the work is being done."

ShyGuy

Where in those new fatigue and rest rules did they outlaw overnight commuting for pilots to report for a trip the next day?

Rest/fatigue rules? 3407 has been used as the prime example to change those rules, so be it. However, lets not pretend that fatigue or rest rules would have prevented this crash. The FO voluntarily chose to commute through the night on Fedex, and then operate after an hour or two of napping on a crew room sofa. The FO also flew sick, although in her defense, she was too poor financially to call in sick. That is a real atrocity. Regional pay and QOL issues should have been addressed. They weren't. As for the Captain, newer/tougher rest rules would not have spotted his failure track record, nor would it have spotted dishonesty on an application.

Moose

I found it amusing the DoD supports the flight time restrictions for the contract carriers. But, it's OK to take their C-17 pilots and send them out on 6 day missions that log 55+ hours with only 3 nights in a bed. 22-23 hour days being the norm with 16-18 hrs off. On top of that, the active duty crews are young with many aircraft commanders having less than 2000 hrs mostly at cruise. The first pilot and copilot might have 1000 total hours between the two of them. The missions are grueling with sub-par airfields, air refuelings, NVG operations and crazy mountainous terrain. Several C-17s have been cracked and crunched due to fatigue and inexperience. A big problem is we are also flying up there with you...massively fatigued. But hey, at least the DoD supports safety with the contract guys. What a joke.

JamesNoBrakes

Um, the military is different. That's why you get paid whether you work none, a little, or till you die. Sometimes you get a good gig, sometimes you get screwed. I'd agree that needless hazards should be avoided, but being able to perform at a very high level and "deal" with situations like that is exactly what it's about. If you spend 8 years in the military and don't come out like you were aged 16, they probably weren't hard enough on you. I'm pretty liberal these days, but I'm proud of my service and there were plenty of hard missions that I participated in. Contract carriers can sue the government and are just that, businesses that are contracted. If you are in the military, you follow orders. If you feel the orders are unsafe, you better have a good reason why, and stand your ground. I may have been up for extended periods of time, and then all of a sudden I had to spring into action to make sure that coordinates are correct and won't kill our own troops (army). Was my performance level 100% after that? Nope. Hopefully there are enough levels of safety, but again, it's a different animal IMO. It's kind of like how when you went to sick-call, they'd recommend dosages of medicine that in the civilian world doctors are sometimes reluctant to supply. Why? Your ability in the short-term is most important.

Sorry if this sounds like a rant. If you feel there are serious safety issues then I support bringing them up. At the same time, I realize the military wants people to perform far beyond the civilian expectations and the mission is more important than all else. Mission, Men, Myself. Totally different than my outlook of the civilian world.

Moose

Quite the rant. Think you missed the point though. We in the military "get" what you just said. But, the fact is, we fly fatigued in the same airspace as all the 121 carriers. We are not supermen that operate at some mystical higher level while fatigued.