Midwest Airlines Midwest Miles - Midwest Safety

This was on JS Online this morning. Let the mudslinging begin:

http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/54543887.html

I expected better from Rudy Maxa. This was a pretty meaningless article.

Let's see if Straight Talker is able to contain himself after reading this.

Makes for juicy headlines, though.

The report is being ripped apart on other discussion sites, and at least right now I don't have time to dig through and see what may or may not be suspect with the data.

In the specific case of Midwest, I wonder to what extent the crunching might use a bad denominator. A quick look at what they disclose about their methodology talks about accidents and incidents per 100,000 flights. And they look at stats for the past 12 months, the past 60 months, etc.

Let's say these are the stats (the number of annual flights is a pretty good swag based on 717 and M80 schedules for 2004 and 2009, but incidents is definitely made up)

2004, 51376 Flights, 100 incidents
2005, 51376 Flights, 100 incidents
2006, 51376 Flights, 100 incidents
2007, 51376 Flights, 100 incidents
2009, 11700 flights, 22 incidents

The rate of incidents per flight is the same in all five years.

However if they are careless and divide 422 incidents over 5 years by today's level of flights (today's 11,700 per year * 5 years = 58,500) instead of the actual number of flights (217,204 over 5 years) the true rate of about 194 per 100,000 would be reported as 721 per 100,000

Again, those are not real incident numbers, but the number of mainline flights is not terribly out of line, using today's 717 activity as the 2009 number.

In every ranking someone comes out last, and perhaps Midwest really does in this area. However to show up not only last, but wildly higher than average, suggests there could well be a flaw in their methodology. Sloppiness like what I've illustrated above could be part of it.

This thread is an unprecedented opportunity for us all in the Midwest forum, regardless of opinion or agenda, to converse like adults, without making inflammatory remarks or personal attacks, without provocation.

We have a web article, essentially an op/ed piece, quoted by the newspaper as a de-facto rating of safety. Even Maxa's article itself doesn't purport to be a de-facto safety rating and makes tremendous assumptions. It is essentially an interpretation of an interpretation of some statistics that were gleaned by unclear methodology. This appears to be his personal rating of their safety, and Maxa is fairly straightforward about that. Furthermore, he's perfectly welcome to write or blog about whatever he thinks about the safety of as many airlines as he cares to list, however he cares to categorize them. How JSOnline can promote this as a de-facto safety rating is beyond me.

Most people in this forum are able to get their hands on various safety/accident/incident metrics and crunch numbers and report them with clearer methodology than this.

After I posted this, I thought about this a little more and see if I could find some information to back it up. The Aviation Herald publishes ANY incident about aircraft so I did a search and here are the results.

Search results for "Midwest"
Midwest MD81 near St. Louis on Jul 7th 2008, flight control problems

Midwest MD81 near St. Louis on Jul 7th 2008, flight control problems

Republic E170 near Indianapolis on Feb 27th 2009, flaps problems

Midwest B712 near Kirksville on May 12th 2005, wild pitch oscillations in flight due to failed air data heating

Republic E170 at Washington on Nov 17th 2008, mechanical issue

Midwest B717 at Dallas on June 19th 2008, Van crashed into tail of aircraft

Midwest 328JET and United Express CRJ200 near Ft. Wayne on Nov 13th 2007, TCAS RA at FL250

Midwest B717 at Boston on December 20th 2005, tire damage on takeoff, return to BOS (Video)

Only these items were listed. Based on this, I really wonder where he got the information he has to support his conclusions.

After I posted this, I thought about this a little more and see if I could find some information to back it up. The Aviation Herald publishes ANY incident about aircraft so I did a search and here are the results.

Search results for "Midwest"
Midwest MD81 near St. Louis on Jul 7th 2008, flight control problems

Midwest MD81 near St. Louis on Jul 7th 2008, flight control problems

Republic E170 near Indianapolis on Feb 27th 2009, flaps problems

Midwest B712 near Kirksville on May 12th 2005, wild pitch oscillations in flight due to failed air data heating

Republic E170 at Washington on Nov 17th 2008, mechanical issue

Midwest B717 at Dallas on June 19th 2008, Van crashed into tail of aircraft

Midwest 328JET and United Express CRJ200 near Ft. Wayne on Nov 13th 2007, TCAS RA at FL250

Midwest B717 at Boston on December 20th 2005, tire damage on takeoff, return to BOS (Video)

Only these items were listed. Based on this, I really wonder where he got the information he has to support his conclusions.

Thanks for doing that legwork, MKE 1K

Based on regional airlines showing up separately in the source data, I don't think the Republic or Skyway incidents (329JET) would count towards the Midwest figures. The FAA isn't about brand names or marketing alliances or ownership stakes, but about operating certificates.

I am looking at the list of incidents that MKE was able to pull down and I am thinking that it is incomplete...Before that incident this february on the flight from Ft. Meyers to Milwaukee which was diverted to Indianapolis for "Flap issues"...There was a flight from Boston to MKE on an E170 that was diverted to O'Hare for "Flap issues" as well...But this doesnt seem to be on the list.

I also remember being on a flight from MKE to Boston on a 717 last winter that boarded, got away from the gate and taxied almost to the runway before we had to go back to the gate because of "Flap issues", eventually the equipment was swapped out for a E170 and we made it to Boston that afternoon.

After reading this blog I find it hard to believe the Journal Sentinel jumped on this and published it online. Hogwash if you ask me and shame on JSOnline for falling into this trap. Midwest has had maintenence awards in the recent past. I just don't get it. No wonder their paper gets thinner and thinner and they are losing subscribers by the boat load. It is so bad I think Airliners.net deleted the post.

I am looking at the list of incidents that MKE was able to pull down and I am thinking that it is incomplete...Before that incident this february on the flight from Ft. Meyers to Milwaukee which was diverted to Indianapolis for "Flap issues"...There was a flight from Boston to MKE on an E170 that was diverted to O'Hare for "Flap issues" as well...But this doesnt seem to be on the list.

I also remember being on a flight from MKE to Boston on a 717 last winter that boarded, got away from the gate and taxied almost to the runway before we had to go back to the gate because of "Flap issues", eventually the equipment was swapped out for a E170 and we made it to Boston that afternoon.

Those E170 incidents would not count towards Midwest's score. However I do see your point, that the because the online search didn't retrieve any of these, perhaps it misses other events.

It is so bad I think Airliners.net deleted the post.

Hmmmm.... It is back on airliners.net today. I did a search yesterday and it didn't show up. People there think it is bull too.

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/4528869/#

This is not an objective report. With no data or mentioning of the criteria they used one should not place any weight on their results