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Don’t Piss Off the FAA

April 10, 2008

 

I didn’t pay much attention last week when Congress held hearings into the FAA’s relationship with airlines.  Representative Oberstar (D-Minn) clearly pissed off Robert Sturgell (Administrator of FAA) when he suggested that he had a “cozy relationship with the airlines and lacked an enforcement mindset.”  The biggest loser appeared to be Southwest Airlines who flew planes with cracks in them evidently with the approval of the FAA. The boys at the FAA didn’t like Congress suggesting, “All eyes are on this now. We have a fundamental problem here. It’s time for a giant step back for a top-down strategic review of the FAA.”  Oops!

The FAA, in response, is clamping down on the airlines.  Yesterday the FAA forced American Airlines to shut down half of their flights and today more than 1,000 flights have been canceled.  Today the FAA suggested that they are going to expand their scrutiny of passenger planes resulting in more groundings for American and other carriers including Alaska, Delta, Continental and Southwest.  These ‘audits’ will result in more and more canceled flights through June.

I am not sure what Congress was thinking.  The FAA has an amazing record of safeguarding our skys, the only real problem we have is our air traffic control system.  Our economy is going to lose billions as a result of the FAA’s crackdown, too bad we couldn’t use some of that money improving our air traffic control systems instead.  Our economy is in the tank so Congress decides to screw up an entire industry ~ thanks Representative Oberstar!

Written by Alexander Muse · Filed Under Blog, Politics 

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