United grounds 777

[Garry Russell]

More problems for US airlines

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7327561.stm

Garry

[DispatchDragon]

Garry

I will say this - of the 40 odd MD80s we own - only 4 have been found to have the grounding hydraulic bundling problems that AA
and Delta had - ALL of the ex SAS/Finn-air acft met requirements - just so happened the four in question had been through
C check in Tulsa in the last 6 months - Coincedence?? H'mmm maybe not ;-)

Leif

BTW this is not unexpected here - the FAA have been very easy on ALL carriers over the last few years - now they
are in the middle of a HUGE inspection program that encompasses the entire airline industry so they are bound to
find something I would be surprised if they didnt - and more surprised if our wonderful yellow dog media didnt
jump on - It is of course GWB's fault you know :roll: ;-)


Leif

[Garry Russell]

Hi Leif

In the stories on Southwest recently there was talk of the FAA turning blind eyes and that mentioned this was or until now had been quite a long term thing.

Garry

[Chris Trott]

A lot of the "turning a blind eye" was played up. In fact, most of what happened with the SWA deal (and I still think they're being made a patsy in the whole thing) was that SWA found the problem on its own, notified the FAA and Boeing, asked what to do, Boeing said that they could keep flying the planes until they got checked and the FAA didn't object to that course of action. Now, several months after those aircraft were inspected, the FAA comes back (after a disgruntled FAA employee goes to the media claiming that he's been "railroaded" for lack of a better term) and fines them $10M and says that they were wrong to keep flying the planes.

It's typical politics. When the light's not on you, you do the work and keep going. When the light is on you, you flail your arms, make lots of noise, scare the living daylights out of those who have no clue as to how it really works, and only manage to make the cost of goods and services to go up because of both lost revenue (due to the loss of patronage/sales and/or stoppage of production/service to come into "compliance") and additional regulatory compliance issues (i.e. it takes more time to make sure you're doing it "right").

It's unfortunate, but the reality of where we're at today. Common sense and the idea that when you fess up to making a mistake you don't get buried for it don't exist anymore.

[airboatr]

……….a riddle wrapped in a enigma wrapped in a illusion wrapped in a ....
I don't know what.......hanging way out there in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle.

interesting bedfellows