Cheap fares are great, be they cheap airplane tickets or cheap vacation packages, but airline safety is a priority for most travelers. The Senate is working on a bill to reauthorize the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) while adding a number of safety and consumer measures.
Large U.S. airlines have progressively outsourced their shorter flights to lower cost regional airlines, which in turn often operate under a name similar to the major airline. Regional airlines now handle over 50 percent of domestic departures and 25 percent of all passengers. They offer the only scheduled service out of more than 400 small airports.
While U.S. airlines lost over $8 billion in 09, regional airlines reported $200 million in profits.
Safety requirements senators hope to have contained in the final bill include requiring:
1) Airline co-pilots to have a minimum of 1,500 hours of flight experience. Currently co-pilots flying on regional airlines can have as few as 250 hours, helping regional airlines pay lower wages to less experienced pilots.
2) Airlines to look at a pilots entire record, including the results of previous tests of flying skills prior to hiring any pilot.
3) The FAA to make airlines pilot training programs more rigorous.
4) The FAA to carry out surprise inspections of regional airlines at least once a year.
5) Doubling the frequency (going to twice yearly) of FAA inspections of all foreign aircraft repair and maintenance stations that work on U.S. planes.
U.S. airlines previously had all major maintenance and repair work done in the U.S., using their own employees. However, over the last 20 years, to take advantage of cheaper, nonunion labor, airlines have outsourced such work.
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