The rumored massive FAA fine against American Airlines for maintenance violations back in April of 2008 has been announced — try on $24.2 million on for size. Wow. Not only was the airline forced to ground hundreds of flights which cost them additional tens of millions and inconvenienced passengers but now they have to pay the biggest fine in airline history.
The record fine, regardless of the final appeals process, puts all airlines on notice that the cozy and cooperative FAA/airline relationships of the past are over. This is one of a series of maintenance fines the FAA has proposed over the past year emphasizing the letter of the law.
If this were a civilian court, I would expect to hear airlines claim cruel and unusual punishment about this time. Worse yet, as I understand it, the fine is being metted out for a flaw discovered by American’s maintenance department and a procedure that the airline proposed itself.
I wrote about the ongoing “maintenance jihad” being conducted by the FAA last February.
This fine seems to be based more on procedure than on “immediate” flight-safety risks. In addition, many partially fault the FAA and their ongoing inspection standards running up to the grounding of around 3,000 AA flights back in 2008.
All of the above not withstanding, changing the past culture of FAA/airline collusion is not pretty, terribly fair or easy. The FAA is determined to reign in old practices and insist that airlines follow the rules. It seems that process and procedure over government/industry cooperation is the new norm.
The FAA in announcing the fine also focused on procedure in their statements.
“We expect operators to perform inspections and conduct regular and required maintenance in order to prevent safety issues. There can be no compromises when it comes to safety,” said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood in the ruling.
The FAA said the planned civil penalty stemmed from inspection and repair lapses flagged in April 2008 that prompted the airline to ground 300 MD-80 series planes, disrupting flights for several days.
Back in April 2008 the FAA and AA were playing a blame game — a bit of tit for tat. But these fines show that after two years of investigation and certain massive airline backroom pressure the FAA decided that maintenance procedures needed a shake up.
DOT is not only shaking up the FAA/airline relationships, but they are changing the formerly sparse consumer regulations dramatically that once only consisted of two rules concerning lost luggage and denied boarding.
The old hands-off relationship between the airlines and DOT when it came to customer service seems to have been torn asunder with new regulations forcing airlines to adhere to strict tarmac-delay rules and more coming rulemakings that are tightening tarmac-dealy regulations to include regional and foreign carriers.
In addition to the tarmac delay rules, the proposed rulemaking includes new requirements for disclosure of airline fees, total price advertising that will include all taxes and fees, passenger service plans, 24-hour refunds, increase in the denied boarding compensation fines, better notification of passengers during delays and new baggage delivery standards.
Anyone interested in these proposed new consumer regulations should visit regulationroom.org for an overview and to make comments. Consumer issues are now front and center in DOT for the first time in my memory.
On the industry side, what we do know from this latest proposed fine is that FAA maintenance oversight regimes have been dramatically changed. The old world of FAA inspectors working together with the airline to fix maintenance problems is over. Now the industry and the government has a more adversarial relationship. Airlines will now be put on notice to err on the side of the letter of the safety regulations instead on the side of scheduling.
I’m not sure this will serve the industry well in the long run. I hope FAA inspectors and airline maintenance operations find a middle path that will serve safety efforts and fleet operations the best.
Charlie Leocha is the President of Travelers United. He has been working in Washington, DC, for the past 14 years with Congress, the Department of Transportation, and industry stakeholders on travel issues. He was the first consumer representative to the Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protections appointed by the Secretary of Transportation from 2012 through 2018.
