[jimworcs]

Ok, I am willing to have a debate about this..but before we start, I was stating categorically, that the overall standards of US aviation are of the highest order.

However, some of the trends that are causing me concern are as follows:

1. Conflict of Interest when training provider is "selling" the right hand seat. The practices of the Gulfstream Flight School, in particular, guaranteeing some of their graduates hours in the right hand seat, flying commercial commuter flights on behalf of Delta and US Airways is potentially unsafe.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=aaNPBjZ2kB54

The relevant passage I am concerned about is this:

Pilots say Gulfstream has an unhealthy relationship between its airline and its flight school. Gulfstream’s training program is different from others, because it guarantees students time as a first officer, the No. 2 position in the cockpit, flying passengers for its own airline, Gulfstream says on its Web site. “We offer the fastest possible transition to the ‘Right Seat’ of a commercial airliner,” Gulfstream says. For $32,699, students get 522 hours of training -- including 250 hours as a first officer for Gulfstream International Airlines. That means student pilots are paying Gulfstream for the privilege of flying as first officers. “Gulfstream is selling the job,” says Charlie Preusser, a regional airline pilot who flew for Manassas, Virginia-based Colgan Air. “When you’ve got a guy fronting the cash, there’s a lot of pressure on the company to keep him onboard no matter how bad he is.”

2. Fatigue. Where pilots are commuting very long distances before taking the controls and often sleeping in "crash pads" and crew rooms as they cannot afford a hotel room and cannot get home and back before their next shift.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/ny...ilot.html?_r=1

The relevant passage I am concerned about is

Peek inside a crew lounge at midnight in Chicago, and one could easily find every recliner occupied by an off-duty aviator trying to sleep despite the whine of a janitor’s vacuum cleaner. In any city with a sizable air hub, a search of Craigslist for the term “crash pad” will turn up listings for rooms for rent, often for $200 a month or less, a short drive from an airport, where a dozen or more pilots, unable to afford hotels, may come and go, barely letting the mattresses cool. But many regional pilots, paid entry-level wages that are sometimes no better than a job at McDonald’s, can not afford even a crash pad. “I know a guy who bought a car that barely ran and parked it in the employee lot at his base airport, and slept in his car six or seven times a month,” said Frank R. Graham Jr., a former regional pilot and airline safety director who runs a safety consulting firm in Charlotte, N.C. Pilots for some regional airlines have been known to sleep in the aisles of their planes.

This would be illegal for someone driving a truck for example, but appears to be perfectly legal for pilots.

There is nothing wrong with commuting cross-country to fly, said Roger Cohen, the president of the Regional Airline Association, a trade group

The fact that the regionals are well aware of the conditions of their pilots illustrates the potential safety implications.

3. Very Low Pay There are vast discrepancies between the pay of some carriers over others. This can lead to a culture of pilots seeking entry to the profession accepting pay and conditions which result in them flying fatigued and working two (or more jobs). This was referenced in the link above. Here is a listing of the differences in pay between US airlines. Look at the discrepancies between entry level, commuter airlines and the main lines. The pay rates can be so low, and yet the level of responsibility remains of the highest. Do the public really know about this? Over time, I do believe this will become a safety issue.

http://www.aviationinterviews.com/pi...epayrates.html


So, is there any evidence that this may have resulted in accidents. Firstly, the crash of the Colgan aircraft near Buffulo, flying on behalf of Continental, is a cause of concern. The first officer in that crash actually stated on the CVR that she was concerned about other first officers pushing for promotion too quickly (for financial reasons presumably) before they were sufficiently trained and experienced.

Both the pilot and co-pilot in this crash had also discussed being afraid to call in sick, as they would not be paid and feared for their job. So whilst I agree Justme that a pilot has the ultimate responsibility for ensuring they are "fit to fly"... human factors will play a role in this. Airlines cannot keep their pay so low, hours high and expect that the pilot will not take this into account when deciding if s/he is fit to fly.

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/634135

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews


I have tried to provide sources for this information, but much of this debate has been triggered by the Colgan crash. For those who have the time, you can see the evidence provided to the NTSB here:

http://www.ntsb.gov/Dockets/Aviation...27/default.htm