deniah

caught this today on TV, about outsourcing of aircraft maintenance to low-quality/integrity foreign 3rd party companies. Implicated specifically on here is United airlines.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...ource=bigimage

im sure many of you already know about this, but i figured it is of interest to others

Icypackattack

WOW, I may actually watch PBS for once...

planemechanic

There are so many things wrong with that story it isn't funny.

rjw242

Is this in the same vein as those news stories about airline pilots being "forced" by their employers to fly with "too little" fuel, and therefore "WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!111"?

allset2travel

Have not watched PBS for many years, and this story is not about to break that trend.

BearX220

Watch the piece before you condemn it. The correspondent, Miles O'Brien, is a friend of mine and not at all given to hyperbole.

youreadyfreddie

Wait--wasn't he a member of the Enterprise crew?

deniah

frontline is the most interesting series in broadcast right now, imo

AlaskaAir738

There's also an hour-long Frontline program regarding regional carriers, Flying Cheap. Different from Flying Cheaper???

ffsrdweebs

For a group that is so interested in what seat they are sitting in, I'm surprised there isn't more concern for what that seat is, or is not, bolted to. But I guess ignorance is truly bliss.

Although somewhat singled out here (and rightfully so), United isn't the only airline supporting these vendors. A lot of this outsourcing started with the up start low cost carriers (Southwest, America West, Value Jet, Jet Blue, etc). And hence this race to the bottom in service, then schedule and now safety.

I have seen both these shows (Flying Cheap & Flying Cheaper)and as a former industry I can assure you that both do a very good job of revealing some very serious issues. The really scary part is that these shows really only hint on a small part of a much larger story.

Safe travels and buyer beware.

planemechanic

Really?

Then how do you explain this:

"Peggy Gilligan, the FAA's associate administrator for aviation safety, points to the fact that "over the last 10 or 12 years we have actually reduced the risk in aviation by over 80 percent for fatal accidents. So if anything, we have expanded safety margins."

cordelli

Yeah, there's a clear connection between ignorance and watching a one hour TV show. PBS should use that at pledge time.

rjw242

Wow, I've never met an industry before.

As planemechanic points out, the hard statistics speak for themselves: flying is safer than it's ever been. And numbers, unlike TV shows, have no incentive to (literally) scare up viewership.

BearX220

Quite right, but FT orthodoxy is highly invested in protecting airline culture and not challenging the status quo. Note that critics seized on your typo as evidence that your views must be suspect, but ignored the substance of your post. It's difficult, perhaps, to consider that the corporations in which frequent flyers invest so much emotional equity and even love might be returning the favor by exposing them to risk this way.

The Frontline programs were well-researched and calmly presented to anyone who cares to see them. Unforch there is a lot of "I don't need to see them because I already know they're no good" criticism about.

Welcome to FT by the way!

rjw242

Please don't misrepresent my post. I dedicated 7 words to the typo and 30 to a substantive argument.