(Source: NPR)

The government is imposing fines for the first time against airlines for stranding passengers on an airport tarmac, the Department of Transportation said Tuesday.

The department said it has levied a precedent-setting $175,000 in fines against three airlines for their role in the stranding of passengers overnight in a plane at Rochester, Minn., on Aug. 8.

For those unaware of the issue, here is a wonderful write-up , courtesy of Wall Street Journal Blog, that gives you a good understanding of the incident that prompted this Fed action and a breakdown of the DOT penalties for each of the involved parties.

Flight 2816 from Houston to Minneapolis was diverted to Rochester at 12:30 a.m. and passengers were held onboard until 6:15 a.m., when they were finally allowed into a terminal, DOT said. ExpressJet, which operated the flight on behalf of Continental, had contacted Mesaba, the only airline with ground handling at Rochester, before the plane landed. Mesaba agreed to provide ground services. But shortly after the flight arrived, a Mesaba employee told the flight’s captain passengers couldn’t deplane because there were no Transportation Security Administration screeners on duty. That didn’t matter—TSA rules don’t prohibit people from deplaning without screeners on duty.

DOT fined Continental and ExpressJet $100,000 for engaging in unfair and deceptive trade practices because they violated Continental’s customer service commitment, which promises that passengers will be allowed off a plane after it has been sitting for three hours. Mesaba was fined $75,000 for an unfair and deceptive practice when it provided inaccurate information to ExpressJet about deplaning passengers from Flight 2816, the DOT said.

Continental and ExpressJet, which each were fined $50,000, both said in statements that they agreed to the DOT’s consent order to avoid costly litigation. They both noted that ExpressJet had worked throughout the night to deplane passengers but was blocked by Mesaba. Mesaba said in a statement it believes it “operated in good faith by providing voluntary ground handling assistance to ExpressJet,’’ but is re-evaluating policies and procedures because of the event.

Secretary LaHood followed-up on this issue with a blog post, expressing his support for the passengers: “Look, this is just no way to treat passengers, customers, or anyone. You can’t strand people overnight without access to the basics. It’s not right; it’s against the rules.”

Click here to read the entire article.

Transportgooru Musings: Thank you, Secratary LaHood.  Your actions reaffirm that our Government is  indeed “for the people, by the people, of the people.” Interesting enough, the NPR story also notes that the department’s action comes at a time when the Congress is weighing legislation that places a three-hour cap on how long airlines can keep passengers waiting on tarmacs before they have to offer them the opportunity to deplane or return to a gate. The measure would give a flight’s captain the authority to extend the wait an additional half hour if it appears that clearance to takeoff is near. As one would expect, the Air Transport Association (ATA), which represents major airlines, is opposing this measure.  According to the ATA,  a three-hour limit could create more problems than it alleviates by increasing the number of flights that are canceled and leaving passengers stuck at airports trying to make new travel arrangements.

How is that the European airlines are able to successfully operate without encountering such problems?  I’ve not seen anyone from an European airline complaining about the EU regulations (at least after it had become a law).  The European Union, which caps the acceptable delay at 2 hrs,  has successfully enacted the Passenger Bill of Rights that has some reasonable points that tells you how much they care about a passenger stuck in a metal tube with no access to basic necessities such as food. The following summary of the EU law, courtesy of Airsafe.com, gives you a good idea of what the European value system looks like:

Delays and Cancellations for European Union Related Flights

In most, but not all, cases involving a delay or cancellation of a flight, a passenger is entitled to compensation under European Parliament Regulation (EC) 261/2004 for delayed and cancelled flights. There are three levels of compensation:

• in the event of long delays (two hours or more, depending on the distance of the flight), passengers must in every case be offered free meals and refreshments plus two free telephone calls, telex or fax messages, or emails;
• if the time of departure is deferred until the next day, passengers must also be offered hotel accommodation and transport between the airport and the place of accommodation;
• when the delay is five hours or longer, passengers may opt for reimbursement of the full cost of the ticket together with, when relevant, a return flight to the first point of departure.

This regulation applies to all airline flights departing from an EU airport or to any airline licensed in the EU if that flight is departing from an airport outside the EU to a destination at an airport in an EU member state.

Delays and Cancellations for Other International Flights

(Source: USA Today)

A marked decrease in airline travel has made this summer the smoothest in years for fliers accustomed to lengthy delays and snarled traffic.  Overall, it has been a remarkably pleasant summer season for air travelers, who had gotten used to big delays this time of year.

The aviation system is suffering significantly fewer delays than the past two years, according to government data and aviation experts. The lengthiest delays — which cause people to miss connecting flights and trigger the most havoc — are down even more steeply. In May, June and July, delays longer than two hours dropped by more than 25% compared with 2008 and 2007, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

The nation’s aviation system is still far from immune to thunderstorms, congestion and unexpected problems: Several jets in recent months were stranded on the ground for hours, prompting angry complaints by passengers. New York’s three airports, which remain more clogged than average, continue to drag down performance across the country, the data show.

Overall, traffic at large airports is down 9% this year compared with last, according to the FAA. Airline restructuring in recent years has been so drastic that airports such as Pittsburgh and St. Louis have seen traffic drop by as much as two-thirds, turning them into veritable airport ghost towns amid the economic downturn. Here are some interesting highlights from the USA Today article.

• There has also been a 9 percent decreaes in overall traffic at large airports, thanks to the high prices of fuel last year and the economic downturn. That trend is expected to continue through Labor Day, when approximately 3.5 percent fewer people are expected to fly compared to last year.
• Cincinnati, which had more than 500,000 arrivals and departures in 2003, is on pace for fewer than 200,000 this year.
• Of the nation’s busiest 31 airports, only two have not improved through June this year compared with a year earlier, according to the federal Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International, one of the few airports that has not seen a significant decline in flights, and Newark Liberty International, plagued by that region’s congestion, saw slight increases in delays, according to the data.
• The biggest improvement in on-time performance occurred at O’Hare. Last year through June, only 61% of flights arrived on time at O’Hare. This year, 78% arrived within 15 minutes of their scheduled arrival times.

Click here to read the entire article.

(Source: U.S. GAO)

Image Courtesy: GAO

The air cargo industry contributed over $37 billion to the U.S. economy in 2008 and provides government, businesses, and individuals with quick delivery of goods. Although part of an aviation system with an extraordinary safety record, there have been over 400 air cargo accidents and over 900 incidents since 1997, raising concerns about cargo safety.

GAO’s congressionally requested study addresses:

(1) recent trends in air cargo safety,

2) factors that have contributed to air cargo accidents,

(3) federal government and industry efforts to improve air cargo safety and experts’ views on the effectiveness of these efforts, and

(4) experts’ views on further improving air cargo safety.

To perform the study, GAO analyzed agency data, surveyed a panel of experts, reviewed industry and government documents, and interviewed industry and government officials. GAO also conducted site visits to Alaska, Ohio, and Texas.

From 1997 through 2008, 443 accidents involving cargo-only carriers occurred, including 93 fatal accidents. Total accidents declined 63 percent from a high of 62 in 1997 to 23 in 2008. Small cargo carriers were involved in the vast majority of the accidents–79 percent of all accidents and 96 percent of fatal accidents. Although accident rates for large cargo carriers fluctuated during this period, they were comparable to accident rates for large passenger carriers in 2007.

GAO could not calculate accident rates based on operations or miles traveled for small carriers because the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) does not collect the necessary data. Although several factors contributed to these air cargo accidents, our review of National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) data found that pilot performance was identified as a probable cause for about 80 percent of fatal and about 53 percent of non-fatal cargo accidents.

Furthermore, GAO’s analysis of NTSB reports for the 93 fatal accidents, using an FAA flight-risk checklist, identified three or more risk factors in 63 of the accidents. Risk factors included low pilot experience, winter weather, and nighttime operations. Alaska’s challenging operating conditions and remotely located populations who rely on air cargo are also a contributing factor. Many federal efforts to improve air cargo safety focus on large carriers.

Air cargo experts that GAO surveyed ranked FAA’s voluntary disclosure programs–in which participating carriers voluntarily disclose safety events to FAA–as the most effective effort to improve air cargo, but two of the three main voluntary disclosure programs are used typically by large carriers. Several industry initiatives, however, focus on carriers with smaller aircraft, such as the Medallion Foundation, which has improved small aircraft safety in Alaska through training and safety audits.

The two actions experts cited most often to further improve air cargo safety were installing better technology on cargo aircraft to provide additional tools to pilots and collecting data to track small cargo carrier operations. Using flight risk checklists can also help pilots assess the accumulated risk factors associated with some cargo flights.

Recommendations:

• To help FAA improve the data on and the safety of air cargo operations, the Secretary of Transportation should direct the FAA Administrator to gather comprehensive and accurate data on all part 135 cargo operations to gain a better understanding of air cargo accident rates and better target safety initiatives. This can be done by separating out cargo activity in FAA’s annual survey of aircraft owners or by requiring all part 135 cargo carriers to report operational data as part 121 carriers currently do.
• To help FAA improve the data on and the safety of air cargo operations, the Secretary of Transportation should direct the FAA Administrator to promote the increased use of safety programs by small (feeder and ad hoc) cargo carriers that use the principles underpinning SMS and voluntary self-disclosure programs.
• To help FAA improve the data on and the safety of air cargo operations, the Secretary of Transportation should direct the FAA Administrator to evaluate the likelihood that cargo incidents could be precursors to accidents and, if FAA determines they are, create a process for capturing incidents that would allow in-depth analysis of incidents to identify accident precursors related to specific carriers, locations, operations, and equipment.
• To help FAA improve the data on and the safety of air cargo operations, the Secretary of Transportation should direct the FAA Administrator to create incentives for cargo carriers to use flight risk assessment checklists in their daily operations, including tailoring a sample flight risk assessment checklist for part 135 cargo carriers.

Click here to read/download the entire report (60 Pages).

(Source: ABC News, FastLane Blog & YouTube)

The U.S. Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood made a post this morning on his FastLane blog that had a time stamp of 5:53AM.  Feels good to know that someone at the Secretary’s-level cares to let the citizens know about what he is doing through such blog posts, even if can squeeze a minute or two to press a blog at that ungodly hour of the day.   Thank you, Hon. Secretary LaHood for keeping us informed. 

 In his post he noted that later in the day, he will convene a summit with representatives from the major air carriers, their regional partners, aviation industry groups and labor on the topic: improving airline safety. “Every one of us who gathers here today has a responsibility to take the necessary steps to make flying safer. And, we will make sure that carriers and their regional partners are working together on all aspects of safety. Our goal is simple: We must inspire confidence in every traveler, every time he or she steps onto a commercial aircraft of any size, at any airport in the country. It’s an enormous responsibility; it’s our highest duty” ,observed the Secretary.

Along with the FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt, he pulled together the FAA and industry leaders to produce an immediate “to do” list to assure the flying public that all our country’s carriers–including our regional carriers–are operating as safely as possible.  He stated the highest priority is protecting lives and to that end, the USDOT will act quickly to set effective industry standards on crew education, training and performance, professionalism, and flight discipline.

ABC News report from the Summit had the following: FAA administrator Randy Babbitt told airline companies today he expects them to do complete background checks on pilots before hiring them to fly passengers — including getting permission from pilots to access all of their training records. Airlines are allowed to do that today but it became clear in wake of the February plane crash in Buffalo, N.Y., that not all of them do.

“There’s a public perception out there, unfortunately, right now that pilots can repeatedly fail check rides and still keep their jobs,” Babbitt said. “We want the passengers in this country to have absolutely no doubt about the qualifications of the person or crew flying their airplane.”

“I want a recommendation today about asking Congress to expand the scope of the Pilot Records Improvement Act to give employers access to all of the records available in a pilot’s file,” Babbitt also said.

Though current law dictates that pilots must sign a release allowing potential employers access to their training records, the Federal Aviation Administration on Monday set new expectations and strongly recommended the airlines ask for access. Finding ways for airlines to voluntarily make flying safer was the focus of conversation as representatives from all corners of the airline business gathered at the FAA in Washington, D.C., with Babbitt and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

“We want to be innovative,” Dan Morgan, vice president of Colgan Air’s safety and regulatory compliance, said last week. “We’re part of an industry that’s highly regulated, but there’s nothing that says that we can’t try to do a few things that haven’t been done before.”

High on the agenda was crafting a manifesto by day’s end to reassure travelers that airlines are doing all they can to ensure pilots are beyond prepared to fly passengers to their destinations, and to help more senior pilots mentor those with less experience.

Click  here to read the entire summit report.

(Source: Green Car Congress)

Image: via Apture

Off late, there is a big push within the Aviation industry towards a “greener future.”   More airlines are starting to test technologies and tweak approaches (such as use of biofuels) to attract the environmentally-conscious consumer. According to 700-page Stern Report on the economics of climate change, CO2 emissions from aviation are about 600-700 megatonnes per year, or about 2-3% of total global CO2 emissions.   Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s Director General and CEO, in his State of the Industry address at the 65th IATA Annual General Meeting and World Air Transport Summit in Kuala Lumpur said the international airline industry is committed to achieving carbon-neutral growth by 2020.

Amdist all the buzz and fervor building up around the greening of aviation, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA),  the world’s largest technical society dedicated to the global aerospace profession, with more than 35,000 individual members worldwide, and 90 corporate members, has released its first annual list of top emerging aerospace technologies.  Developed by AIAA’s Emerging Technologies Committee (ETC), the 2009 list comprises the following:

1. “Greener Aviation” Technologies, including emission reduction and noise reduction technologies as usedin the Federal Aviation Administration’s Continuous Low Emissions, Energy and Noise (CLEEN) program, and the European Environmentally Friendly Engine (EFE) program and “Clean Sky” Joint Technology Initiative.
2. Alternative Fuels, including biofuels, as promoted by the FAA’s Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative (CAAFI), and the recent FAA grant to the X Prize Foundation to spur development of renewable aviation fuels and technologies.
3. High Speed Flight Technologies, such as supersonic and hypersonic aerodynamics, sonic boom reduction technology, and thermal management aids.
4. Efficient Propulsion Technologies, including open rotors and geared turbofans, such as those used in the European DREAM (valiDation Radical Engine Architecture systeMs) program.
5. Active Flow Technologies, such as plasma actuators.
6. Advanced Materials, such as nanotechnology and composites.
7. Active Structures, such as shape memory alloys, morphing, and flapping.
8. Health Management, such as monitoring, prognostics, and self-healing.
9. Remote Sensing Technologies, including unmanned aerial vehicles and satellites such as those used inNASA’s Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) program.
10. Advanced Space Propulsion Technologies, including plasma-based propulsion such as the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket, and solar sail technologies.

AIAA’s list reflects the expertise of the members of the Emerging Technologies Committee, as well as the results of a specially commissioned study. The ETC is composed of three technical subcommittees: Aviation, Space, and Multidisciplinary and System Technologies.  ETC chair Dan Jensen stated, “The list provides guidance to AIAA for its institute development strategy, while helping shape the annual input AIAA provides to the United States Air Force Scientific Advisory Board. The technologies listed represent the aerospace technologies in which research and technology development is most active from a global perspective.”

(Source: Associated Press) 

WASHINGTON — The nation’s air traffic control systems are vulnerable to cyber attacks, and support systems have been breached in recent months allowing hackers access to personnel records and network servers, according to a new report.

The audit done by the Department of Transportation’s inspector general concluded that although most of the attacks disrupted only support systems, they could spread to the operational systems that control communications, surveillance and flight information used to separate aircraft.

 The report noted several recent cyber attacks, including a February incident when hackers gained access to personal information on about 48,000 current and former FAA employees, and an attack in 2008 when hackers took control of some FAA network servers.

Auditors said the Federal Aviation Administration is not able to adequately detect potential cyber security attacks, and it must better secure its systems against hackers and other intruders.

“In our opinion, unless effective action is taken quickly, it is likely to be a matter of when, not if, ATC (air traffic control) systems encounter attacks that do serious harm to ATC operations,” the auditors said.

In response to the findings, FAA officials stressed that the support systems and traffic control networks are separated. But they agreed that more aggressive action should be taken to secure the networks and fix high-risk vulnerabilities.

According to the report, the FAA received 800 cyber incident alerts during the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2008, and more than 150 were not resolved before the year finished. Fifty of those, the auditors said, had been open for more than three months, “including critical incidents in which hackers may have taken over control” of some computers.

Officials tested Internet-based systems that are used to provide information to the public such as communications frequencies for pilots, as well as internal FAA computer systems. The tests found nearly 4,000 “vulnerabilities,” including 763 viewed as “high risk.” The vulnerabilities including weak passwords, unprotected file folders, and other software problems.

The weaknesses could allow hackers or internal FAA workers to gain access to air traffic systems, and possibly compromise computers there or infect them with malicious codes or viruses, the audit warned.

The public is getting its first uncensored look at the government’s records of where and when airplanes have struck birds over the last 19 years, thanks largely to pressure resulting from the dramatic ditching of a US Airways jet in the Hudson River after bird strikes knocked out both its engines.

Finally, travelers will be able to learn which airports have the worst problems with birds.

Since 1990, the Federal Aviation Administration has been collecting reports voluntarily submitted by commercial and private pilots, the military, airline mechanics, and airport workers who clear dead birds and other animals from runways. The agency has released aggregate data over the years so it’s known that there are records of more than 100,000 strikes and that reported strikes more than quadrupled from 1,759 in 1990 to 7,666 in 2007.

But the FAA has always feared the public can’t handle the full truth about bird strikes, so it has withheld the names of specific airports and airlines involved.

Aware that some airports do a better job reporting strikes than others and that some face tougher bird problems, the agency said the public might use the data to “cast unfounded aspersions” on those who reported strikes and the airports and airlines in turn might turn in fewer voluntary reports.

But this week Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood overruled the FAA’s attempt to throw a formal cloak of secrecy over the data before it had to reveal the records in response Freedom of Information Act requests from The Associated Press and other news organizations.

The database was to be posted on the Internet at midmorning Friday.

With President Barack Obama promising a more open government and releasing secret Bush administration legal memos about harsh interrogations of terrorism suspects, LaHood said he found it hard to justify the FAA’s plan to withhold records about birds flying around airports.

LaHood also noted the public bridled at being kept in the dark. In addition to newspaper editorials coast to coast opposing the FAA’s secrecy, members of the public commenting directly to the FAA opposed it by a 5-to-1 margin.

(Source: Washington Post; USA Today & Airsafe.com)

 The people should have access to this kind of information

Department of Transportation is preparing to reject a proposal by the Federal Aviation Administration that would keep secret data about where and when birds strike airplanes.   Among the high-profile boosters of releasing the information is Transportation Secretary  Ray LaHood, whose agency oversees the FAA.  He said the comments ran “99.9 percent” in favor of making such information accessible.  

“I think all of this information ought to be made public, and I think that you’ll soon be reading about the fact that we’re going to, you know, make this information as public as anybody wants it,” LaHood said in an interview for The Washington Post’s “New Voices of Power” series. “The people should have access to this kind of information.

“The whole thing about the bird strike issue is it doesn’t really comport with the president’s idea of transparency,” the secretary said. “I mean, here they just released all of these CIA files regarding interrogation, and . . . the optic of us trying to tell people they can’t have information about birds flying around airports, I don’t think that really quite comports with the policies of the administration. . . . It’s something that somebody wanted to put out there to get a reaction. We got the reaction, and now we’re going to bring it to conclusion.”

Here is the Secretary’s interview to Washington Post’s Lois Romano on this issue:

 The FAA last month quietly posted a proposal in the federal register, requesting public comment, that would bar the release of its records on bird collisions. The proposal followed a prominent incident in January when a flock of geese brought down a commercial flight, forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing on the Hudson River. The agency immediately came under fire because the recommendation runs counter President’s Obama vows of government transparency.

For those interested in reading the FAA’ proposal on Federal register, here it is:

 Note: TransportGooru appreciates the Sec. of Transportation’s stand against this move by FAA.  Public have the right to know and it is not nice that FAA can withhold  sharing this data, even after the overhwleming public response.

Mike Zara @ Flickr

 (Source: New York Times)

Like many other air traffic controllers, Michael Pearson was hired by the Federal Aviation Administration in the early 1980s to help replace more than 10,000 striking air traffic controllers who were fired en masse by President Ronald Reagan.

(Source:  Wall Street Journal)

Ok. Ok. So this might be a bit wonky, but we never let a good chart go to waste.

This one – which appeared in a GAO report released Tuesday – shows the declining uncommitted balance in the Airport and Airway Trust Fund, a pool of money used to help pay for services such as the Transportation Security Administration and the Federal Aviation Administration.

The trust fund grew over the years mostly from the 7.5% excise tax on tickets and the federal segment fee of $3.40 assessed on every flight. Fuel taxes and other federal fees, like the international arrivals and departure tax, go into the fund as well. As ticket prices decline and travel slows, those taxes don’t produce as much revenue, and the government has been drawing down the fund, which originally was set up to pay for future modernization of air travel. The GAO reported that the uncommitted balance in the Trust Fund has decreased since fiscal year 2001.

Click here to read the entire article.