We’ve actually begun discussing our trip to California over Christmas, pondering whether (given the cost and inconvenience of air travel) it might make more sense to drive out (bonus: more gifts can come home with us).
This article adds some, ah, fuel to that fire.
Pilots are complaining that their airline bosses, desperate to cut costs, are forcing them to fly uncomfortably low on fuel. Safety for passengers and crews could be compromised, they say. The situation got bad enough three years ago, even before the latest surge in fuel prices, that NASA sent a safety alert to federal aviation officials.
No action.
Since then, pilots, flight dispatchers and others have continued to sound off with their own warnings, yet the Federal Aviation Administration says there is no reason to order airlines to back off their effort to keep fuel loads to a minimum.
”We can’t dabble in the business policies or the personnel policies of an airline,” said FAA spokesman Les Dorr. He said there was no indication safety regulations were being violated.
Evidently when pilots get hinky about passengers who look “suspicious,” the government and airlines are willing to back their professional judgment and prerogatives to the hilt. When it comes to what’s a safe amount of fuel, though, it’s all a matter of how much money the airline wants to save.
“What we found was that because they carried less fuel on the airplane, they were getting into situations where they had to tell air traffic control, ‘I need to get on the ground,’ ” said Linda Connell, director of the NASA reporting system.
[…] In March, for example, an airline pilot told NASA he landed his regional jet with less fuel than required by FAA regulations. ”Looking back,” he said, ”I would have liked more gas yesterday.” He also complained that his airline was ”ranking” captains according to who landed with the least amount.
A month earlier, a Boeing 747 captain reported running low on fuel after meeting strong headwinds crossing the Atlantic en route to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. He said he wanted to stop to add fuel but continued on to Kennedy after consulting his airline’s operations manager, who told him there was adequate fuel aboard the jet.
When the plane arrived at Kennedy, the captain said it had so little fuel that had there been any delay in landing, ”I would have had to declare a fuel emergency” – a term that tells air traffic controllers a plane needs immediate priority to land.
I predict this will not change in the slightest until there is an actual crash because of the problem, followed by a big festival of finger-pointing.
(via Ginny)