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Expect more cancellations as a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) safety audit continues until July. The audit began after revelations that Southwest Airlines flew jets without performing certain inspections and led last week to the grounding of thousands of American Airline planes. The audit of maintenance compliance makes more groundings a dead certainty. "Where there's smoke, there's fire," says Kevin Mitchell, president of the Business Travel Coalition, a frequent critic of airline maintenance and FAA oversight. With the FAA working to the letter of the law, any problem -- no matter how small -- will require an immediate fix, Mitchell says.
The agency is scrambling to tighten up on air safety procedures so that Congress won't step in to reregulate the airline industry. "The FAA must clean itself up. If not, Congress will order remedies," says one key congressional staffer. That's likely to mean new restrictions and more oversight of outsourced maintenance that many airlines use.
More FAA moves are coming. By April 30, the agency will have revamped its reporting system so the concerns of inspectors aren't deep-sixed by supervisors who disagree. Any disputes would be documented and reviewed regularly by a regional safety board. The goal is to prevent a repeat of the Southwest fiasco in which older planes continued to fly, even after an inspector raised safety concerns.
Tighter employment curbs to reduce potential conflicts of interest are also possible. The FAA will review restrictions on agency inspectors who later go to work for airlines they've overseen to make sure there's no motivation to go easy on the airlines. Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, is likely to introduce his own legislation to require a cooling-off period for inspectors who go to work for the airlines.
Congress will eventually weigh in with its own reforms. The likely vehicle for implementing these changes is the FAA Reauthorization Bill. That bill is stalled in Congress over a funding issue, and chances of it passing this election year grow dimmer every day. But continuing complaints from stranded passengers will put pressure on lawmakers to act sooner rather than later. When the bill finally does move, it will tighten FAA oversight, maintenance outsourcing and passengers' rights.
There has not been a fatal accident of a U.S. carrier since November 2001, as the FAA and the airlines are quick to point out. "It is critically important that corrective measures avoid a rush to change the vast majority of processes that have enabled us to provide the world's safest mode of transportation," according to a statement from the Air Transport Association, an industry trade group.
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