Administration Not too Pleased with Taking the Blame Fires Back with ‘Facts and Logic’

The FAA published a response to a recent article reviewing the apparently lackluster safety performance in an industry apparently - to the untrained eye, at least - beset by near-collisions and spookily close calls. The page, entitled "Close Calls and the New York Times: What You Need to Know", the FAA maintains that the U.S. aviation system is the safest in the world. They do admit that some problems exist, while pointing out the myriad safety efforts and overall impressive record established in terms of reducing fatalities throughout the airline ecosystem at home.

The Raiments Altruism

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has set forth its intent to examine the so-called public charter loophole that airlines—the proposed SkyWest Charter operation, for example—use to skirt the aviation safety rules that have led to a 99.8 percent reduction in airline passenger fatalities in the United States. Earlier this year, the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) called on the Department of Transportation (DOT) to reject a proposal from SkyWest to shift its current flying, which operates under the safety-centric provisions of FAR Part 121, to a surrogate airline that it created with the intention of operating the same aircraft with fewer seats under FAR Part 135’s less-stringent safety regulations&m