BBC's take on the U.S. regional industry.

[siucavflight]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/world_news_america/8041357.stm

 

[OCP]

What the FOQA is FOQA!?

 

[doh]

"The rules prvent fatigue". He must be talking about the 16 hour duty/8 hour reduced rest rule.:smash:uke::uzi:

 

[siucavflight]

I like when the reporter mentioned to that jackas$ that people come to work tired cause they are only making 20K a year, and he had no answer for her.

 

[Flybywire44]

"The rules prvent fatigue". He must be talking about the 16 hour duty/8 hour reduced rest rule.:smash:uke::uzi:

Roger Cohen is an as*hole. You can't speak to their individual choice? You can speak to the market conditions that their airlines are generating... self-serving idiot.

 

[IBNAV8R]

"No employee should go to work tired." Didn't I see this guy on SNL - Irwin Mainway? (sorry, can't find a video).

 

[V-1]

Thanks for sharing.

Unfortunately I fell asleep halfway through.

 

[SkywayFO]

Cohen is an idiot. Ignorant ********************ing toolbag. What Airline is he the CEO of? Don't they just pass that title around the CEO, just like the title of Regional Airline of the year. What a shame association/lobby group. ********************ing tool I tell ya!!!

 

[ualdriver]

Interesting news piece.

Cohen came across as pretty ignorant. The FAR's prevent people from showing up tired for work? Give me a break. The things that need to be fixed cost money- probably alot of money, which means they won't be fixed until enough people get hurt or worse. We all know that.

There were two points made that I didn't know. One, that you guys don't have FOQA. I thought everyone operating a turbojet had that by now. Two, 5 of the last 6 accidents happened on regional airlines? I would have thought that the majors had some interspersed in there that qualified as an accident.

And they're looking at fatigue for that last Colgan crash? I haven't seen anything lately about that accident. How long were they on duty?

 

[crj567]

I would love to have Cohen join me on just one trip.. I know of a sweet 3-day for that fool..... I would bet $50 that a-hole would wreck his freaking car driving home from the airport after this "sweet" gem. That is unless, he did the "responsible" thing when so freaking exhausted-and just passed out for a while in his Hyundai before getting on the road!

Where the heck is the General? I sure would love to see what that moron thinks of all the "little guys" who have second jobs and make as little money as the F.O. in the clip.

The world is full of airbags like Cohen and Gen Lee. Useless people-it is just a shame they don't have to come along and see what some of the "little people" have to deal with.

-I would gladly invite the General on the same 3-day... Come along, Chief! Your coffee will be fresh and extra creamy-don't mind the little brown lumps-we just got some bad filters!!

 

[propsarebest]

This Cohen guy was never a CEO. He used to be head of P.R. for AOPA.


You can thank him for all the junk mail you get from AOPA.

 

[OCP]

There were two points made that I didn't know. One, that you guys don't have FOQA. I thought everyone operating a turbojet had that by now.

I'm at ASA and have never even heard of that before. What does it do?

 

[Dumb Pilot]

I'm at ASA and have never even heard of that before. What does it do?

Flight Operations Quality Assurance....

It is a program that identifies operational error trends using the information downloaded from the A/C's FDR's

 

[ualdriver]

I'm at ASA and have never even heard of that before. What does it do?

Like dumb pilot said but I'll take it one step further. It basically allows representatives, usually from both the union and the company, to look at various data points and try to find unwanted trends and work together to fix them before they become an incident or accident.

For example, let's say a fictional airline's data is analyzed and they're finding that X% of visual approaches are unstabilized at 500 feet and pilots aren't going around as they should. During your next PC, part of your briefing might include the data from FOQA, an explanation of how these approaches are trending the wrong way, etc., etc., and then hopefully that would raise pilot awareness and more attention would be paid to stabilizing approaches better or executing a go around. Or maybe they'll find that a bunch of these unstablized approaches are happening at a certain airport so they could work with ATC perhaps to give more time to get guys down or perhaps change crossing restrictions on the arrival or whatever.

I know for a fact it has improved safety at my airline and it's incomprehensible to me that the FAA doesn't make stuff like that mandatory.

 

[imacdog]

FOQA would be nice but crap like a scheduled reduced-rest 8 hour overnight needs to go, NOW.

 

[flyboyike]

I know for a fact it has improved safety at my airline and it's incomprehensible to me that the FAA doesn't make stuff like that mandatory.

It's not like the FAA doesn't make enough stuff mandatory.

 

[OCP]

Like dumb pilot said but I'll take it one step further. It basically allows representatives, usually from both the union and the company, to look at various data points and try to find unwanted trends and work together to fix them before they become an incident or accident.

For example, let's say a fictional airline's data is analyzed and they're finding that X% of visual approaches are unstabilized at 500 feet and pilots aren't going around as they should. During your next PC, part of your briefing might include the data from FOQA, an explanation of how these approaches are trending the wrong way, etc., etc., and then hopefully that would raise pilot awareness and more attention would be paid to stabilizing approaches better or executing a go around. Or maybe they'll find that a bunch of these unstablized approaches are happening at a certain airport so they could work with ATC perhaps to give more time to get guys down or perhaps change crossing restrictions on the arrival or whatever.

I know for a fact it has improved safety at my airline and it's incomprehensible to me that the FAA doesn't make stuff like that mandatory.

All that sounds like the ASAP program then. (which we do have at ASA) Same thing, different name?

 

[Buzo]

All that sounds like the ASAP program then. (which we do have at ASA) Same thing, different name?

FOQA and ASAP are not the same thing. ASAP as you know, is self reporting. FOQA downlinks info from the FDR.

 

[Brody1]

Wanna check a bag? That will be $25 extra. Want a window seat? That'll be an extra $35. Want a flight crew that had a full nights' sleep? Fork over another $100.

Unbelievable . . .

 

[sinkrate]

Like dumb pilot said but I'll take it one step further. It basically allows representatives, usually from both the union and the company, to look at various data points and try to find unwanted trends and work together to fix them before they become an incident or accident.

For example, let's say a fictional airline's data is analyzed and they're finding that X% of visual approaches are unstabilized at 500 feet and pilots aren't going around as they should. During your next PC, part of your briefing might include the data from FOQA, an explanation of how these approaches are trending the wrong way, etc., etc., and then hopefully that would raise pilot awareness and more attention would be paid to stabilizing approaches better or executing a go around. Or maybe they'll find that a bunch of these unstablized approaches are happening at a certain airport so they could work with ATC perhaps to give more time to get guys down or perhaps change crossing restrictions on the arrival or whatever.

I know for a fact it has improved safety at my airline and it's incomprehensible to me that the FAA doesn't make stuff like that mandatory.

Unfortunately managements at regional airlines are not that enlightened. Instead of using the DFDR data to identify training and maintence issues to address they use it to identify the pilots involved and then fire the pilots. Consequently most mature Regional contracts have strict language prohibiting the use of 'eletronic data' by management for any purpose.

I work at one of the three regioanls that do have a FOQA program in place. Management is constantly trying to use the data in disciplinary procedings. The FAA isn't much better. The union has had to seek help from the FAA's national program manager to get the local FAA to follow their own rules. It takes time to change old mens attitudes and managements prejudices.