ValuJet Cuts Flights 50% in Safety Move

By JAMES F. PELTZ

May 18, 1996 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

ValuJet Airlines, still reeling from the fatal crash of one of its jetliners a week ago, took the radical step Friday of slashing its daily flights by half to adequately check the safety of its fleet.

ValuJet’s voluntary cutback--the Atlanta-based airline normally operates up to 320 flights daily, mostly in the East--is a financially risky move driven by the 2 1/2-year-old carrier’s need to allay public concern that its breakneck growth has somehow compromised its safety.

Immediately paring the flight schedule will “give the strongest possible reassurance” to the public that the airline is committed to safety, a ValuJet spokesman said.

But the sudden action “will cause major financial hardship” for ValuJet, which had been an industry model of how a start-up carrier could be profitable and expand, said Michael Boyd, president of the consulting firm Aviation Systems Research Corp. in Golden, Colo.

“When you put half of your fleet down, it’s going to cause big problems,” he said.

ValuJet already had canceled more than 30 flights this week as federal regulators stepped up their inspections of its planes in the aftermath of the May 11 disaster, in which a ValuJet DC-9 crashed into the Florida Everglades and killed all 110 people aboard.

The cause of the crash is still being investigated.

At the scene Friday, police divers awaited full-body biohazard suits for a plunge into the murky crater to recover more pieces of ValuJet Flight 592. Recovery workers were still looking for the fuselage and other parts of the DC-9 in the crater, which is about 8 feet deep in spots.

Experimental radar equipment that can detect items in the mud will be brought in Monday. Navy sonar has failed so far to locate the plane’s cockpit voice recorder.

Less than 10% of the plane has been recovered, but authorities are “elated” because even that much will help them piece together what happened, National Transportation Safety Board investigator Gregory Feith said.

Investigators are focusing on the front part of the airplane, where they think an explosion or fire might have occurred.

In announcing the cutback, ValuJet said it will continue to serve all 31 cities in its route system with its whole fleet of 51 planes, which are mostly DC-9s that have been flying 20 years or more.

But it said the frequency of the flights will be halved to enable it to inspect all of its aircraft, inspections that will “go well beyond” the investigation of the Federal Aviation Administration.

In addition to an immediate loss of half its revenue, ValuJet risks permanently losing passengers whose travel plans will be disrupted by the airline’s pullback in service, not to mention alienating the travel agents who have helped those passengers get tickets.

(ValuJet said it will refund tickets on canceled flights or place customers on rival airline USAir when there is room.)

ValuJet did not estimate how long its service will be reduced, but said flights will be restored as each plane clears inspection.

ValuJet’s current financial condition is strong. The company’s cash and other assets, which totaled nearly $350 million as of Dec. 31, were nearly double its debt. That will help ValuJet weather a drop in passenger traffic and extra costs related to idling its airplanes for inspections.

“They’re going to be set back, but their financial viability will be left intact,” said one industry expert, who asked not to be identified.

But consultant Boyd disagreed, saying ValuJet’s excess cash “can get eaten up really quickly” while half of the airline’s service is disrupted.

ValuJet’s problems have already unsettled some passengers, even if there has been no mass defection. Display monitors at Southeast airports showed at least 18 ValuJet flights into and out of the airline’s Atlanta hub had been scrapped Friday.

“I’m disappointed, frustrated and a little angry,” said Veniza Barber, a passenger at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. “I think that it’s good the FAA is inspecting the planes, but I think they’re being a little bit harsh on ValuJet.”

Meanwhile, in Miami, security officers with bomb-sniffing dogs had to search two ValuJet planes that received bomb threats as they were about to leave Miami International Airport. Both planes, like Flight 592 that crashed last week, were bound for Atlanta.

Passengers had not boarded either jet. No explosives were found aboard one of the planes; the results of the other search were not immediately known.

Other recently established airlines said Friday that their operations were not being disrupted in the wake of the ValuJet disaster, even though the crash heightened public safety concerns about all small, fast-growing carriers.

“We’ve had only a nominal impact,” said Ed Beauvais, chairman of Western Pacific Airlines, a year-old carrier based in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Vanguard Airlines, an 18-month-old airline based in Kansas City, Mo., received “a few phone calls the first couple of days” after the crash, “but there has been nothing significant enough that we could attribute to that event,” said Randy Smith, the airline’s marketing director.

“We’ve made refunds or travel adjustments to fewer than 10 people, and we take 5,000 [passenger] bookings per day,” he added.

But if passengers aren’t worried, the airlines are. Pittsburgh-based JetTrain, another fledgling carrier that flies two DC-9s, tried to head off concerns surrounding its service by faxing a letter to travel agents telling them of JetTrain’s commitment to safety.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Accident Rates

Major carrier trail several budget carriers in rates based on the number of accidents per 100,000 departures. The contrast:

BUDGET CARRIERS

Tower: 8.68

ValuJet: 4.23

Carnival: 2.74

****

MAJOR CARRIERS

United: 0.45

Continental: 0.35