Comments on: Horizon Air CEO Weighs In On Whether Wholly-Owned Regionals are Safer

By: Greg

Greg — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:40:30 +0000

David- You have hit the nail on the head. There are some safety practices where they do well. But there are many where they follow the absolute lowest cost route. I have spoken with Mr. Pinneo a few times. He is a very nice man. But, he is also extremely good at twisting anything to what he thinks you (or in this case) what the public wants to hear.

In a few instances I have seen them do the right thing for safety. But, their recent practices of short staffing the airline to an extreme is hurting our safety. And from my pilot perspective, they have always followed the FAA minimum rest requirements to the letter of the law. As we have seen by the testimonies resulting from the Colgan crash, the letter of the law is incredibly inappropriate.

By: David Saucedo

David Saucedo — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 07:09:29 +0000

Cranky,
Thanks so much for the many views and issues you get out in the open. This airline safety issue is most important to me as an airline mechanic of 21 years. I find the views of Mr. Pinneo very interesting, and appreciate his candor. If I may however, offer some thought that causes me to question the sincerity of his words regarding “…a common board and a single chairman who’ve been consistently committed to ensuring nothing less than the highest levels of safety at both operating companies.” The simple fact is that Alaska Airlines in more recent years has escalated the outsourcing of much of their aircraft maintenance to outside vendors turning away from their own trusted and experienced mechanics. The move and direction by this same board of directors, if I am not mistaken, is to continue outsourcing even more regular “check” maintenance including parts of the regular line maintenance at Alaska. I understand this move to outside vendors is also expected to spread to the Horizon maintenance check schedule as well, and there is talk of “C” checks being outsourced and sent to vendor maintenance. My issue, and mistrust in the phrase continually used by these two companies -”the highest levels of safety”- is that the move to outside aircraft Maintenance Repair and Overhaul facilities (MRO) is a move based purely on cost savings and cutting corners. The corners cut are in the differences in the requirements governed by the FAA for the Air Carrier’s and the lessor standards for the MRO’s. All airline repair is regulated by a series of Federal Aviation Regulations (FAR). MRO’s are governed by FAR 145, and the Air Carriers fall under the higher standards of FAR 121. Both FARs however represent only the minimum level of safety and not the high level that all airlines operated under for years before the deregulation act of 1978. The emergence of low cost carriers, created a market of MRO’s that operates largely using more affordable minimums. But the FAA ultimately holds the air carriers responsible for all maintenance that is done, and is why commercial air carriers, including Alaska and Horizon, had employed much higher standards for in house maintenance. Simply put, by outsourcing maintenance, airlines are selling off safety and reliability to the lowest bidders, marginalizing standards, and risking lives based on the statistics of the “safety of air travel”. I do not work for either of these airlines, and while there is allot I do know about aircraft repair, I realize at the same time there is still so much to learn. Still, I would hardly call the practices of outsourcing maintenance “the highest levels of safety”. Mr, Pinneo, please do not follow the other airlines in stepping over dollars to pick up pennies. Put trust instead to your own Mechanics, and continue to earn the rewards they have delivered to you so far. You can do this by keeping all of your maintenance in house.

By: JamesK

JamesK — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:51:05 +0000

While I think it’s great that Jeff has had a positive experience with Horizon after the Alaska acquisition, it’s unfortunately not the rule for “wholly-owned” regionals. All too often, the wholly-owneds can’t get approval for investment in technology from the finance department of the parent company.

Take a closer look at the improvements made at regionals before and after spinoffs (or acquisition by another regional). Regionals that have gotten things like FOQA, ACARS, IOSA, Cat III, etc., first are often those that aren’t owned by a major. Horizon is the only regional I’m aware of that has RNP or HGS capability on their fleet (though Bombardier and Embraer are more than willing to install them for the right price).

I think the FAA and NTSB are rightly focused on rapidly expanding carriers, not just regionals and not just regionals not owned by a major. Well-established regionals tend to have captains with a lot of experience, good training programs and safety records to match. Small carriers that add a ton of bigger aircraft all at once are going to struggle to fill those cockpits, whether it’s a Q400 or a 767.

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 06:22:52 +0000

The show is actually a Canadian show called “Mayday” produced for the Canadian Discovery Channel, it’s merely re-branded “Air Emergecy” in the USA. However it’s putting it in the same category as “Seconds from Disaster” is the sad part.

Also, having flown many many many times YYJ-SEA (and YYJ-CLM-SEA) on QX (and pretty much every other airline that’s done it in the last 30 years), I’m pretty sure you’ve got nothing to worry about

By: Greg

Greg — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:14:36 +0000

Horizon still has 15 CRJs flying. They also have 2 parked.

Most regional airlines follow the same safety practices, which is unfortunate. Horizon is not an exception. One thing they do have going though is the seniority and thus experience of their pilots. They also used to have experienced mechanics, but they were lured away by Boeing during the manufacturer’s last hiring spree.

By: Wonko Beeblebrox

Wonko Beeblebrox — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:15:22 +0000

Mr. Pinneo might need to update his photo… it still shows a Horizon CRJ on the monitor in the background. ;)

Nice to hear from him. I always like flying on Alaska and Horizon.

By: A

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:17:58 +0000

Cranky, glad to hear you have the big guys in the airline business readying your blog. And per Mr. Pinneo’s letter I’ll probably feel just a little bit safer on my next trip to YYJ. (Not that I haven’t felt safe in the past.)

Now, I wonder if Richard Anderson is reading your blog? I’ve got me some Delta gripes.

By: BF

BF — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:47:19 +0000

>>>to further improve it’s already strong record.

To further improve it is already strong record?

The possessive form of the pronoun “it” does not contain an apostrophe.

By: David SFeastbay

David SFeastbay — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:46:50 +0000

It was nice to hear from Mr. Pinneo and to get a response from someone that high up in a company. Any company is only good if it’s leaders use common sense and it’s workers care about what they are doing.

Airline workers of today are not like the airline workers of the ‘golden years’, so alot of what is good or bad with a company hingers on the workers. But it all starts at the top with management making the right decisions and making sure everyone down the line does the best they can.

Two shows from TV called Air Emergency and Seconds from Disaster have profiled many air crashes including Alaska 261 and so many times it was either pressure from the top that had workers taking short cuts or supervisors and workers just making a wrong decision. Sometimes keeping an airplane in the air at all costs can lead to people rushing and not paying attention to what they are doing.

So while an airline can make safety its number one priority, just one little slip up some where by one person can cause an accident and give the whole industry a bad rap.