This has been a bad week for airlines. We’ve seen two established carriers go belly-up: Aloha (1946-2008) and ATA (1972-2008). We’ve seen numerous models of aircraft be pulled for after-the-fact inspections (737s, MD-80s, 777s, A320s), often for maintenance problems that should have been caught during normal inspection. We’ve seen reports that dangerous conditions have been ignored, and that the FAA is too cozy with the industry. All this while airline service goes down and airfares go up.
So what’s next? Which airline will be the next to imitate a dead parrot?
There are surely going to be investigations in all of this, and I would also expect changes at the FAA. Of course, we all know the root cause of the problem (although I’m sure geah would disagree): the pendulum swinging too far towards deregulation. The DOD learned this when it tried acquisition reform, which didn’t work. The financial markets have been learning this the hard way of late. Next will be the airlines.
