July 16, 1998
ALPA, Intl
Committees
Tonight’s Hotline topic is:
- F.A.A. Civil Penalties against America West Airlines
This week’s Hotline is devoted to a discussion of the
recently announced civil penalties against America West Airlines.
Earlier this week, the F.A.A. and America West jointly
announced a civil penalty of 5 million dollars, reduced to 2.5 million dollars subject to
the Airline implementing certain changes in its operations. This made quite a splash in
the local and national media.
Many of our pilots have expressed frustration that the
Company seemingly dodged a regulatory bullet. Importantly, this week’s announcement of
fines does not represent the end, but rather the beginning of a process that will require
the airline to significantly improve its maintenance and safety programs. A close reading
of the Agreement between the F.A.A. and the Company reveals that it calls for sweeping
changes in Maintenance, Operations, and to a lesser extent, Crew Resources.
The overview.
Several points are worth noting.
1) America West Airlines has waived any rights to appeal
this Agreement. We will pay 2.5 million now, and may pay the remaining 2.5 million, if the
Company does not perform as outlined in the Agreement, including the timing of the
required actions outlined below. The Company has 12 months to be in full compliance with
all the requirements outlined in the Agreement.
2) Final determination as to whether or not America West
Airlines has fully complied with the Agreement will be made by the F.A.A.
As part of the F.A.A.’s new emphasis on safety systems and
culture, the Agreement calls for the creation of Strategic Action Teams. These teams are
designed to attack safety problems at their roots, and build appropriate corrective
measures into the Airline’s operating systems. The Teams will be composed of personnel
from America West Airlines and the F.A.A.’s Certificate Management Unit.
The Strategic Action Teams must create and submit within 30
days a plan to devise comprehensive corrective actions in the following areas:
- Oversight of Contract Maintenance
- Minimum Equipment List compliance, including deferred
maintenance. - Dispatch and flight following programs.
- Flight and ground training programs, including resources to
support these programs. - Flight crew scheduling, including reliability of planning
software. - Crew qualifications for international operations.
In some instances, the F.A.A. will require America West
Airlines to exceed FAR standards.
The plan must also focus on the projected future operations
and growth for the next 36 months. The plan must address details of projected aircraft
acquisitions and changes in company infrastructure to accommodate this projected growth.
The plan must clearly describe the methodology that America West will use to calculate
future resource requirements, and must clearly identify the commitments that America West
has made to acquire these resources.
This is the basis of the plan that America West Airlines
has agreed to. The Agreement mandates specific timelines that must be adhered to:
- Within 5 days, the Company must pay 2.5 million to the
F.A.A.
- Within 15 days, America West must demonstrate that the
Vice-President for Corporate Safety operates independently of other departments, and is
responsible for system safety in all areas of America West’s operations and maintenance,
and reports directly to, and is accountable to the C.E.O.
- Within 15 days, America West will establish single points of
contact for F.A.A. liaison regarding regulatory compliance in operations, maintenance, and
avionics.
- Within 30 days, the Plan outlined just above must be
submitted. The Airline must also demonstrate that it has sufficient numbers of experienced
maintenance and inspection personnel, quality assurance personnel, ground support
personnel, materials and equipment in place to support its operations and maintenance
activities along its route, including contract maintenance.
- Within 30 days, America West must submit a plan to improve
existing Quality Assurance programs by creating an autonomous Quality Assurance
organization that is independent of the existing Quality Control activities, and which
reports directly to the C.E.O.
- Within 45 days, America West must provide the F.A.A. with an
updated letter of compliance which, in addition to demonstrating compliance with each
applicable section of Parts 119 and 121, describes America West’s operating systems in
terms of system attributes, safety culture, training programs, etc.
- Within 45 days, America West must demonstrate that its
system to identify, train, authorize, oversee, and audit its contract vendors exceeds the
requirements of the FAR by ensuring that properly defined and documented controls and
responsibilities are in place and adhered to.
In a nutshell, this is the foundation of the Agreement. To
quote Tom Stuckey, the FAA’s acting deputy director of flight standards, “We’re
talking about a big deal here that’s going to require quite an effort by the air
carrier.”
This appears to be an effort on the part of the F.A.A. to
overhaul the maintenance culture at America West Airlines. Flight Operations culture may
be significantly affected, as well.
The MEC feels that this agreement has teeth. The F.A.A. has
the power to require sweeping changes at America West Airlines, and while AWA will
participate in the Strategic Action Teams, the F.A.A. has final authority to require
standards in excess of FAR minimums. The MEC is encouraged that the F.A.A. is requiring
America West to exceed regulatory minimums.
In summary, it is clear that the announcements of the past
few days are not the end of the story, but rather the beginning. Expect a substantial
F.A.A. presence at America West for quite some time to come. In fact, the airline has
guaranteed itself heightened surveillance for the foreseeable future!
While the average newspaper reader may think that all
America West Airlines has to do is to fork over a check for 2.5 million, the real story is
not the monetary fine. The real story is the mandatory creation of new procedures and
controls that will address many of the issues that ALPA has raised with management in the
past, including contract maintenance, MEL compliance, crew qualifications, and training
resources.
The mandated changes will take months to be fully realized.
America West management must take their commitments seriously, and make sweeping changes
in the safety culture at our airline. All employees will be watching.
That’s all for this week. Fly safely.Fly professionally.
Know your Contract.Fly your Contract. The next scheduled Hotline Update will be Thursday,
July 23.
| MEC Hotline | ||
| This is Communications Committee Chairman David Weeks with the America West MEC Hotline. |