cfiaime@ihnp3.UUCP (J. Williams) (12/27/85)
Reprinted from "Air Transport World," December, 1985. Editorial: Acceptable losses It is that time of year again when editors, pundits, etc., fill up their space with analyses of the major events of the past twelve months. It is good to do this. It gives one the opportunity to examine where the industry has been and where it is going. The year just past has been interesting. But if we must characterize 1985 in as few words as possible we would call it a year of survival more than accomplishment. Here in the United States the airline industry has just completed its seventh year as a "strictly business" proposition. In this light survival can be considered an accomplishment, we suppose. When reviewing the major events of 1985, however, the issue that will probably stick out more than others is safety. That would get our vote. When we look back at 1985 we shall probably think of it as the year when the airline industry was confronted with one of its most wrenching tests, at least its most severe test since deregulation. A lot of people were killed while traveling aboard the world's airlines in 1985. No need to go over all the numbers here. It was terrible. The accidents were diverse in their circumstance, the nationality of the airlines involved, the transport types which crashed and the outside forces which contributed to the tragedies. Industry experts are having a difficult time finding common threads that would point to some reason for the calamities. They are not having much luck. The focus for blame is still very fuzzy and scattered. It varies greatly with each accident. The industry has gone through these periods of trial and testing before. there was a time when DC-6s were unexpectedly meeting the ground at an alarming rate, when Electra wings were coming unglued and when 727s were pulling out of approach descents a few hundred feet too late. Unlike the current difficulties, however, all of these crises had singular technical causes and solutions. And perhaps more importantly, they took place in the era of strict economic and operational regulation here in the U.S. They all occurred at a time when safety was held to be a sacred issue never to be violated in reckless efforts to "improve efficiency" by cutting expenses. You just didn't fool around with safety, or you had more trouble than you could shovel. Now the world is not so sure. How important is safety these days? If you are in a position of cutting maintenance costs, using old airplanes instead of buying new ones and taking short cuts to save money, or else going bankrupt...is safety still sacred? The airline industry is deregulated in the United States. It is no longer a quasi utility or any other kind of institution. It is just a business clear and simple. The only goal of an airline is to make money. In the military and in most businesses there is the concept of "acceptable losses." In the military situation a commander plans the attack with consideration of acceptable losses. How many casualties are acceptable if we can take Hill 301? In business the same thing applies. For example, the automobile industry in the United States, the manufacturer, the government regulatory bodies and other related groups, have more or less been willing to take 50,000 fatalities per year as an average acceptable loss. That is the usual figure, and not much is done about it. If you feel that regional and commuter airlines are risky, why don't you drive your car on the short business trip? In any case, you get the picture. If in war and in business, why not in the airline industry? What are acceptable losses in the airline industry? From its very beginnings, at least as far as we know, there have never been any acceptable losses in the airline industry. Safety has been a tradition begun by necessity. In the early days airlines had difficulty just getting people into an airplane. You had to really go overboard on safety. The residual benefits of this have helped the industry to this day. There is no reason that it should stop now. But things have changed, and if the airline industry is to continue the tradition it probably needs to take a hard look at itself. Safety has always been a matter of attitude as much as technology and resources. And the attitude must begin at the top. We hear things, and we don't like what we have been hearing. One thing we have been hearing is that airlines are not as willing to cooperate with others in sharing safety information and resources. Traditionally airlines went out of their way to share safety information. They are not so willing any more, we hear. Why help the competition? We hope that what we have been hearing is wrong. We are also hearing things from very responsible industry people that safety may not be as sacred as it once was. Former Northwest Chairman Joseph Lapensky told a recent Lloyd's of London conference that he had no doubts that safety corners have been cut as a result of deregulation in the United States. He said not just by the industry, but by the government as well. He raises a good point about the government. There were many going into deregulation that warned about the additional pressures that unlimited competition would place on safety. And yet the Federal Aviation Administration, its parent Department of Transportation and the National Transportation Safety Board have done little to adjust to the new industry. The Reagan administration dismissed nearly the entire air traffic control plant and has never really brought it back. The administration still shows a reluctance to let FAA spend that trust fund money on new airport and airways systems, still largely following the philosophy that a much better system is just around the corner. And NTSB? We discussed that in a previous editorial this year (ATW, 10/85). But enough about the government. Remember all this deregulation was to get the government off our backs. And so it follows that safety will only be as sacred as the industry wants to make it. So what will be the airline industry's acceptable losses? We can only suggest what they should be. Anyone in the industry should judge safety as adequate only when he or she would be willing to board any flight. From a cooperation standpoint no airline should consider itself better than the industry in which it serves. That may seem harsh, but that is pretty much the way it has been, and it is pretty much the way the public looks at it. James P. Woolsey Reprinted without comment. jeff williams ihnp3!cfiaime AT&T Bell Laboratories