Codesharing gets new Senate and DOT scrutiny

The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation Subcommittee on Aviation safety hearings are focusing on the code-sharing responsibilities between majors and regional airlines. And the DOT slaps United with a rare fine for codeshare violation.

DOT fines United Airlines for “Failure to Disclose Code-Sharing.”
It seems that United Airlines was not revealing code-share information to customers when selling United tickets. It was assessed a fine of $80,000.

“When consumers buy an airline ticket, they have a right to know which airline will be operating their flight,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “We will continue to ensure that carriers are complying with the code-sharing rules.”

DOT rules note that the airlines “disclose to consumers, before they book a flight, if the flight is operated under a code-sharing arrangement. The disclosure must include the corporate name of the transporting carrier and any other name under which the flight is offered to the public.”

In a sting operation, the Department’s Office of Aviation Enforcement and Proceedings made a number of telephone calls to United’s reservations line this past January to determine if the carrier’s employees were advising consumers of code-sharing arrangements as required by the regulations. The Enforcement Office found that United’s reservations agents failed to disclose code-sharing during a substantial number of those calls.

Senators state that code-share partners safety should be equal to main line
The Senate Commerce, Science and Transpotation Chairman Jay Rockefeller noted in his remarks:

Approximately 90 percent of the passengers travelling on regional airline flights purchase their tickets from a major air carrier. However, those passengers are often unaware that the major carrier that sold them their ticket is not actually operating their flight. I look forward to hearing from the witnesses about how we can better disseminate information about which carrier is actually operating their flight. More importantly, I’d like to determine if there are further steps we can or must take to ensure there is one level of safety throughout the commercial air transportation system.

Kay Bailey Hutchinson, the Ranking Member, in her opening remarks noted:

The message should be clear, it doesn’t matter how small or whom you code share, it is the operator’s responsibility to maintain a robust and effective safety management system at their airline. While best practices can and should be garnered from the network carriers through mentoring and other sharing programs — no company should rely on another to supplement what should be the fundamental operating principle at each and every carrier, which is the utmost level of safety.

Byron Dorgan, the Aviation Subcommittee Chairman, noted in his opening remarks that he was planning to fly home the following day and, in his mind, he was flying on Northwest Airlines. He didn’t feel he was shifting between airlines from a national airline to a regional. The planes are painted the same. The flight numbers have the same prefix. The safety should be the same.

This is part of the present system that pulls the wool over the public eyes. We feel that we are flying one seamless airline, but in reality, one airline ticket that says Delta, and looks just like Delta, might involve multiple airlines. Dorgan’s remarks reveal that the public is not aware of the different standards under which these airlines fly. Sometimes these differences are dramatic.

The scrutiny is just beginning. Questions from the Senators on the panel showed that they are delving into the economics of regional airlines, fatigue issues, long commuting for airline industry pilots and other workers, physical inspections of regional airlines by the larger national airlines, more explicit explanations of regional/national differences in advertising, salary levels, pilot records and more to come.