No Compromise on Airline Safety

Sen. Ernest F. Hollings, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, charged the other day that “economic pressures brought about by (airline) deregulation have eroded the margin of safety in the skies.” The possibility of reimposing federal regulation on the airline industry, he warned, should not be written off.

At this point there is no consensus in or out of Congress for bringing back federal regulation of airline fares and routes. But people in the airline business should understand that if reregulation is what it takes to assure passengers that the airlines are not pursuing profits at the expense of safety, then regulation will sooner or later be reimposed.

The Hollings committee opened hearings last week into the the state of the national air transportation system in a deregulated environment, with a special focus on safety.

Under the law an airline pilot is the final judge of whether a plane is airworthy. Two Eastern Airlines pilots testified, however, that they had been pressured to take off in airplanes that they considered unsafe. In one case, one of the plane’s navigation systems was inoperative. In the other, the plane had a faulty hydraulic pump. At least 12 Eastern captains, the pilots said, have been suspended recently for refusing to fly faulty aircraft.

A spokesman for Eastern quickly denied that the airline management would ever direct a pilot to take off in a plane that he considered unsafe. He attributed the pilot charges to “scare tactics” by the pilots’ union. He conceded, however, that pilots are subject to judgment after the fact--and that four have been suspended in recent months for “poor decisions.”

Although union-management problems may be a factor, the record suggests that the allegations can’t be dismissed that easily. The Federal Aviation Administration has cited several airlines for maintenance violations; Eastern itself was fined $9.5 million last year for multiple violations of safety rules. Then-FAA Administrator Donald Engen said that there had been “a deemphasis on maintenance by airlines after deregulation due to the heavy competition.” The general charge is that airlines tend to defer replacement or repair of defective components in order to avoid schedule disruptions.

The deregulation of the airlines has brought cheaper fares on long-haul flights between major cities. But if the trade-off is reduced passenger safety, it’s unacceptable. If the airlines prove unwilling to discipline themselves, the government will have to do it for them--not just with tougher safety inspections but with the provision of an economic environment that does not reward cutting corners on safety.