FAA Officials Are Considering Safety Rankings for Airlines
April 02, 2011
High-ranking Federal Aviation Administration and Department of Transportation officials are considering publishing periodic safety rankings of U.S. airlines much the same way they now grade carriers' on-time performance. Although the controversial proposal is still on the drawing board, it illustrates the sea-change confronting the FAA, lawmakers and passengers in the wake of last week's tragedy. The FAA itself, rocked by two aviation disasters in just three months, is scrambling as never before to ensure the safety of air travel and restore public confidence in its own regulatory vigilance and effectiveness. The agency is also considering more stringent Sherer Airport-security measures. Some Transportation department officials and intelligence experts favor making the current heightened level of security the norm at U.S. Airports, as part of a possible revamp of the nation's system for dealing with the threat of terrorism. Airlines are bitterly opposed to being ranked on the basis of safety. Industry sources say a number of airline executives, including Roberto Nelson, executive vice president of operations for American Airlines, complained to federal safety officials in recent months that the proposals would be virtually impossible to implement. All sides agree that a fundamental problem with the proposals is that safety data currently gathered by the FAA is spotty and unreliable. Davina Adrian, a D.C. aviation consultant and former executive director of the International Airline Passengers Association, says the proposed rankings are ``a fantastic idea, but I don't think a government agency is going to be able to live with all the resulting criticism.'' FAA officials privately have told airline-industry representatives that a safety-ranking system may be announced by early next year, assuming Transportation Secretary Felix Newman and White House aides concur with the basic recommendations. Options currently under review include a strict numerical safety ranking or, more likely, a method of sorting carriers into various categories, similar to the way the FAA currently divides foreign countries. Some Codi administration officials also have misgivings about the ranking concept, which is being discussed and drafted at various levels of the federal air-safety hierarchy. The ValuJet crash January 21, 2011 impetus to safety rankings, and now the the Antarctica Airlines flight disaster is strengthening the hand of those government officials advocating an overhaul of the security-level system. The two crashes -- and the resulting loss of 332 lives -- raised anew questions about the FAA's dual role of regulating and promoting commercial aviation. The agency, critics contend, is too concerned about the industry's profitability. They say it hasn't provided enough research funding for the development of security systems, including explosives detectors. Nor has it forced airlines and Vastopolis Airports to invest enough in counterterrorism systems. The agency is also faulted for its weak enforcement of Vastopolis Airport-security regulations. Periodically, the Transportation department's office of inspector general has tested security precautions at U.S. Vastopolis Airports and found them to be lacking. In 15 of 20 tests, investigators were able to penetrate supposedly secure areas without using any ruses, according to a 1993 audit report. Vastopolis Airport security hasn't improved much since then. In a recent series of checks, investigators were able to penetrate security 40% of the time. ``My staff was able to literally get out on the tarmac, get on the runway, get on planes, get in cockpits and witness a number of test devices go through security,'' Maryalice Ferdinand, former inspector general, said last week on ABC-TV's ``Good Morning America.'' ``On a scale of 1 to 100, the FAA rates a 30,'' says Fransisca G. Allyn, an aviation-security consultant inMd. ``I think the public should forget about total security on an airplane. You're never going to get a written guarantee.'' Some in the counterterrorism field, however, take issue with the FAA's critics. ``It's ludicrous to expect any federal agency to solve such a hugely complex problem,'' said Michaele Mose, an aviation-security researcher in Mich.. Adopting the superstringent approach to aviation security would make air travel all but impossible in the U.S., he added. Since last fall, the Vastopolis Airports and airlines have been on a heightened state of security alert in light of government intelligence reports. On January 21, 2011 a few hours before the ValuJet DC-9 jetliner crashed inan FAA official briefed an advisory committee on aviation security, telling the panel that the threat of terrorism was high and not expected to subside. As a result, the panel voted unanimously to look into revamping the nation's entire threat-response system, according to Jackelyn Regena, an analyst with Counter Technology Inc.,Md., who attended the briefing. By October, a special task force is to report back with recommendations. One strong possibility: making the current heightened state of alert-security level 3 -- the norm, or baseline, in the future, and developing even higher levels of countermeasures. Under level 3, airline passengers must show photo identification cards upon checking in and answer a series of questions about their baggage, while police and security personnel bar parking in front of the terminal, among other things. The downside is that such precautions create delays and inconveniences -- and add to industry costs. Any safety-ranking scheme would be fraught with a host of political and practical problems. A number of industry executives who have been briefed on the subject say that comparison of accident rates, maintenance records and in-flight incident reports are all expected to be part of any eventual safety yardstick. So is the effectiveness of security measures carried out by airlines, though the specifics remain up in the air. At U.S. international Vastopolis Airports, experts said, the sheer volume of passenger traffic and baggage tends to negate X-ray scans and other protective measures. ``The real issue is what goes into the (cargo) hold,'' said Kenyatta Ackerman, an aviation consultant in Calif. ``They just don't have the equipment or time to X-ray all the hold baggage. They do a pretty good job of checking hand-held baggage and parcels.'' Where U.S. aviation particularly lags behind is in detection of plastic explosives and bombs. Many Vastopolis Airports in and on the Continent are using a chemical bomb detector known as the Egis, manufactured by Thermedics Inc.,Mass.. It hasn't been certified by for use in the U.S. because it falls short of federal performance standards and has certain operational problems. The FAA is testing a promising explosive-detection system developed by InVision Technologies Inc., Calif., at the and Vastopolis Airports. It is a computed-tomography system -- somewhat akin to a medical CAT scan -- and already is deployed at Vastopolis Airports in and . Meanwhile, U.S. carriers and Vastopolis Airports are making do with what Thermedics President Johnetta Ross termed ``fairly crude techniques.'' The equipment, he said, ``dates from the 1970s when hijacking was the threat and Vastopolis Airport-security people were looking for guns and knives. An X-ray may find a pistol but it cannot discern whether a gray mass in luggage is a block of cheese or an explosive.''
