Report Outlines Lack of Oversight and Financial Issues behind Airline Groundings
Annapolis, Maryland - June 4, 2008
iJET Intelligent Risk Systems, a leading provider of global intelligence and business resiliency services, today announced availability of a special report outlining the causes and issues behind the safety inspection errors plaguing the airline industry. The report, “U.S. Airline Safety Oversight: Under the Microscope,” provides insight on how problems evolved, the reaction by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the U.S. Department of Transportation's efforts to improve the inspection process and the continued effects on travelers.
An increase in media reports and scrutiny from Congress on a lack of oversight in safety inspections grounded a massive number of aircraft in April. The groundings led to substantial delays, stranded thousands of travelers and raised questions about the overall safety of air travel on U.S. carriers.
“High standards for airline operational safety are essential to protect individual travelers, organizations that rely on business travel and the airline industry itself,” said Stephen Hoffman, CEO of iJET. “The steps outlined by the FAA and the airline industry are imperative to ensure that the U.S. aviation sector remains one of the safest in the world.”
The report covers a number of salient points, including:
- Systematic problems have troubled the FAA, including a "customer" relationship with airlines and a shortage of safety inspectors.
- Many airlines chose to keep revenue-producing, un-inspected aircraft in the air to minimize financial losses associated with downtime for unscheduled maintenance or repairs.
- The FAA is proposing steps to improve oversight of safety inspections, including implementing a process to review and track inspections and the establishment of an independent safety review team.
- While a mass grounding of similar magnitude is unlikely to occur, continued pressure on the FAA may result in the grounding of individual airplanes as well as additional travel disruptions.
In addition to analysis and reporting on U.S. airlines, iJET’s Worldcue Airline Monitor service covers air transportation and airline industry developments around the world. The Worldcue Airline Monitor gives organizations the tools they need to reduce risks to business travelers by notifying travel managers and security officers when employees book trips on airline carriers that do not meet minimum standards of operational safety. iJET’s intelligence team monitors and analyzes information on more than 350 airlines, including large commercial airlines and a number of smaller and charter carriers, to determine risk ratings.
A full copy of the report is available at http://www.ijet.com/news/whitepapers/index.asp.
