Only government can keep airlines safe and honest (Vincent De Roeck)

“Unless the government watches closely, the airlines will kill you.” That seems to be what news reporters, aviation pundits and politicians believe, especially in the aftermath of recent events like the crash of the Spanair McDonnell-Douglas at Barajas Airport in Madrid, the emergency landings of Ryanair and Jetairfly aircrafts at Brussels South and Brussels National airports respectively, the crash of the Kalitta Air cargo jumbo at the same airport, the bankruptcy of the holiday airline Futura which was known for its below-average level of maintenance, or the panicking revelations by US Airways personnel that the troubled carrier was reducing overall maintenance expenditure during the busy summer months. “The result of inspection failures and enforcement failure by the Federal Aviation Administration has meant that aircraft have flown unsafe, un-airworthy and at risk of lives,” said U.S. Congressman James Oberstar last week before the House Transportation Committee of whom he is the long-time chairman. U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton clamoured in an interview during the Democratic National Convention in Denver that “the FAA has clearly displayed a dangerous and cavalier lack of regard for tough safety enforcement.” Lou Dobbs of CNN wondered a couple of days ago “whether airlines are putting profit ahead of passenger safety.” And the same kind of we-need-government populism can also be detected among politicians and opinion makers in my home country as well.

Let me get this straight. The only reason airlines care about safety is because of the FAA? So without government, multibillion-dollar companies would jeopardize millions of passengers by unsafely flying $50-million airplanes? The media and politicians suggest that airlines would cut corners to make money, but how would that work exactly? Crashing airliners is a route to bankruptcy, not profits. But air-travel safety has joined mortgage defaults and global warming as “crises” of the month. Populists in politics and the media get attention by scaring people into thinking the skies are dangerous. The politicians want more power and attention; the clueless media are genuinely scared. The latest “crisis” was launched when the FAA fined Southwest Airlines, which has an excellent safety record, $10.2 million for missing inspection deadlines. When Representatives of both major parties criticized the FAA for being too close to the airlines, the agency sprung into overreaction. An industry-wide audit commenced in the spring, and FAA inspectors were set about finding something (anything) to show that the agency is up to the job of enforcing federal requirements to the letter.

One result of this typical overreaction of a bureaucracy in the face of state criticism was the cancellation of 3,300 American Airlines flights and the stranding of 250,000 passengers over several days while 300 McDonnell-Douglas airplanes were grounded so their wiring could be inspected. American Airlines then did something rare and even heroic. It criticized the agency that regulates it for suddenly changing inspection procedures in ways that have little to do with safety. “We don't know what the rules are,” confessed a technical crew chief for avionics to the “Wall Street Journal” that same week. “Some rules even contradict each other,” said another in the “New York Times”. In the wake of the FAA inspection commencement, independent specialists were hired by American Airlines, including several former executives of the National Transportation Safety Board, to make it clear for once and for all that the FAA was wrong in grounding these well-maintained MD-80s. The conclusions of this independent inspection team were clear and simple: “These airplanes could have flown for the rest of their careers and those wires would not have been a problem.” The FAA never listened to this report and conducted its own investigation. But even until now, we have never heard anything from the outcome of that investigation. This refusal to publish their findings proves our point in a way beyond expectations.

Libertarian syndicated columnist and ABC News TV host John Stossel wrote the following argument down on his website: “What about alarmist claims that the FAA has been lax in enforcing its own procedures? If the claims are true, then where are the bodies? The best evidence that FAA enforcement is unnecessary is to assume it has been lax - and then to note that airline travel, though busier than ever, has never been safer. We need to rethink the premise that government inspections keep us safe.” Stossel also published a link to a study conducted by Clifford Winston and Robert W. Crandall of the Brookings Institution. They claim that “the fundamental problem with most regulation is that the regulatory agency does not have sufficient information, flexibility and immunity from political pressure to regulate firms' behavior effectively.” And they continue in their report that, “fortunately, the market, and in some cases the liability system, provide sufficient incentives for firms to behave in a socially beneficial manner.”

John Stossel, whose opinions in “The Freeman” and “Reason” magazines, in cyberspace or elsewhere, are always tremendously written and quite comprehensive, although fully readable because of their overall simplicity, ends the above mentioned blogpost by asking a few rhetorical questions on this issue. “Suppose that all government regulation of airlines were abolished today. Don’t you suppose that airline executives would tomorrow fire all inspectors and maintenance crews, indifferent to the prospect of losing multimillion-dollar assets in fiery crashes? Don’t you see that airlines with poor safety records would have difficulty attracting customers? Aren’t you unaware that airlines' insurers have ample incentives to work closely with airlines at keeping air-travel safety at optimal levels? In short, are you really so dimwitted to think that airlines will be safe only if they are regulated by government?”

My answer is slightly different than Stossel’s. Yes, I fear most of our politicians are, and sadly, many ordinary citizens tend to belief their government over their own experience and rationale.


Meer libertarische commentaren op http://www.johnstossel.com.
Meer teksten van Vincent De Roeck op http://www.libertarian.be.