FUD at Flight Options

[fischman]

Trying to reason with B19 is like trying to reason with a 3 year old. This guy is out of his mind. Literally, he is the most uninformed, arrogant person I have EVER conversed with.

 

[Mr. Pebbles]

B19

Are you guys sure that B19 is who you say he is? I have a different therory who he is.

 

[Guitar Guy]

Are you guys sure that B19 is who you say he is? I have a different therory who he is.

Please do share. There have been a few theories already put forth.

 

[TurboHonda]

Are you guys sure that B19 is who you say he is? I have a different therory who he is.

We're pretty sure.

Hey Bob. It wasn't me that keyed your car, in spite of what you think.

 

[dime line]

http://www.hallmark.com/wcsstore/HallmarkStore/images/products/ecards/nfg1969.swf

 

[CA1900]

http://www.hallmark.com/wcsstore/HallmarkStore/images/products/ecards/nfg1969.swf

It never gets old! :laugh:

 

[B19 Flyer]

B19, please please PLEASE do some research before you try to pass yourself off as some kind of expert in the frac business.

True, the fracs don't have nearly the number of daily ops that any of the majors do. I don't have our daily numbers available to me. But when you look at something like hull losses, or reportable incidents and accidents (that are the result of something a flight crew did, not something such as an FBO employee driving a fuel truck into a wing) I would bet my next year's pay that the fracs have a lower (even MUCH lower) number of incidents&accidents/1000 ops. And I'm willing to look back a decade, not just since 91K came into existence.

As for the rest of the frac industry, I'd love to know who exactly you're referring to. Are you talking about an operation like the one where they're selling shares in Cirrus aircraft? If so, you aren't making anything near a valid comparison. With that kind of 'fractional' program, you have an entirely different program from what the 'majors' in this industry do. In an operation such as that one, the owners are also the pilots. There aren't any ferry legs since the owners all do out and back legs. Duty and rest limits, why would this type of operation need them? What kind of SOP's would this operation need, since it's unlikely two owners would be flying together (and the aircraft only requires one pilot anyway)? And most importantly, can you point to Cirrus's falling out of the sky prior to 91K?

So you may be right. It's probable that 91K would have significantly raised the cost of doing business for an operator like the one described above. But did it really make it safer? I'm going to say yes, just because fewer people can afford the product, and if people aren't flying, they aren't having accidents in planes.

The real question is, was there a problem with safety prior to 91K. So far, you've presented absolutely nothing that shows there was.

And since it appears that you have to be told something at least three times before it sinks in, 91K came about NOT because of any safety issues. Go back and reread my posts about that in this thread. I'm not going to type it all again. You don't even have to take my word for it. Just do a little research on your own, and you'll discover that 91K was a competetive business thing, maybe even political, but certainly didn't come about because of genuine safety concerns.

As for the safety culture, it most certainly DID come from our union. The fact that you claim it didn't only demonstrates your continued ignorance on the subject. Yes, I'll give you the point that management had to buy off on it to make it work. But management was doing NOTHING to develop and enhance further safety programs at Netjets. What we have now was developed, and carried out, by the union. All management did was rubber stamp it. That hardly qualifies management as being proactive in the field of safety.

However, I'm happy to report that after our recent IBB, the union and management are finally working TOGETHER in a more synergistic relationship to enhance safety, along with many other programs.

How much research do you need, and how much clearer does it get than the federal government?

I pretty much quoted this earlier today off the top of my head, but here is is for you.

Next thing you are going to say is that the Federal Register is wrong too.


I've never seen so many people that don't understand the inner business workings of an air carrier.

_________________________
From the Federal Register, September 17, 2003

Summary of Final Rule​

This rule establishes a new subpart K
in part 91 to cover fractional ownership
operations. The new Subpart K clarifies
what qualifies as a fractional ownership
program, clarifies who has operational
control, defines operational control
responsibilities, codifies many of the
‘‘best practices’’ now being used
voluntarily in fractional ownership
programs, and incorporates many of the
safety standards of part 121 and part
135. By this rulemaking, the FAA
establishes safety standards to maintain
the safety record of current fractional
ownership programs and to ensure that
new fractional ownership programs will
also meet a high level of safety.
In brief, new subpart K accomplishes
the following:
(1) It establishes the criteria for
qualifying as a fractional ownership
program.
(2) It establishes that fractional
owners and the management company
share operational control of the aircraft
and delineates operational control
responsibilities.
(3) It establishes regulatory safety
standards for operations under
fractional ownership programs,
including management operations,
maintenance, training, crewmember
flight and duty requirements, and
others.
This rulemaking also revises certain
requirements in part 135 on-demand
operations. Many of the requirements in
new subpart K of part 91 are based on
requirements for on-demand operations
in part 135. In the process of reviewing
part 135 requirements, the committee
and the FAA determined that some of
the current part 135 requirements
needed to be updated in accordance
with new technology and other changes.
The FOARC studied the best practices of
the fractional ownership programs to
determine under what circumstances
part 135 operations could use those
practices as an alternate means of
compliance with part 135 standards. For
example, FOARC recommended that ondemand
operators be allowed to land at
airports without weather reporting
facilities, provided the flight plan
includes an alternate airport that has
such facilities and they carry additional
fuel to fly to that alternate airport.
Further, this eligible on-demand
operation must provide a 2-pilot crew
with increased pilot experience and that
meets crew pairing standards. In
addition proving test requirements for
both fractional ownership programs and
part 135 on-demand operations were
reviewed and amended. A proving test
requirement was added for fractional
ownership programs and the
requirement for multiple proving tests
for part 135 operations was amended.
Specific requirements in subpart K
and revisions to part 135 are discussed
in detail in the public comment
discussion that follows.​

 

[WabiSabi]

What about the rest of the industry? And unions don't create safety culture. That's insane, because it's management from the top down. That's Safety 101. No buy-in from management, the culture will never even begin.

Dear BOB,
Tell me how unions don't promote safety when FLOPS management did everything they could to keep the IBT out of the ASAP program. It took the union to go to the FAA to show FLOPS management that the FAA's language on ASAP, in no uncertain terms, dictates that if a union is on the property, then said union should have a representative on the event review committee.
BOB, what's with your management is infallible notion? The IBT has a Professional Standards Committee. The IBT has also, on many occasions, pointed out and disseminated valuable information through DYK (Did You Know?) bulletins well before you heard a peep out of the Safety Dept. @ FLOPS.

Where was FLOPS management's safety acumen when management changed the parameters of the circadian low that was defined by the NTSB? Where's that "top down" philosophy to which you pay your babbling lip service?

I don't know about NJ but, the IBT is much more active and effective with safety issues than FLOPS' safety department.....which is there only for the image of promoting safety, apparently.

Of course, you know about all of this. I'm just pointing it out in a public forum.

Babble on Bob, babble on.

 

[realityman]

Thanks for continuing to make my points for me B19.

In the bold black section it states to 'MAINTAIN the safety record'. Hmmmmm.......the word 'maintain' seems to imply that there weren't any real safety problems to begin with. Otherwise I imagine it would have said something about 'to IMPROVE' the safety record of current fractional operators'.

Kinda negates your argument that there were any real safety problems, doesn't it?

But I stand by my assertion that 91K was NOT, I repeat, NOT a result of any safety issues. However, with all the fussing and carrying on by Mark Fruchter and all the charter operators he had behind him, as well as many 91 operators (according to aeroboy), the FAA was basically bullied into taking this action. You don't really think the FAA was going to come out and say, "Due to the fact that the fractionals are kicking the collective butts of the charter outfits, and these charter outfits are upset about it, we're coming up with some new rules which will hopefully even things out somewhat between the fracs and charter outfits"? I suspect that would have appeared somewhat anti-capitalistic.

Uh, no. It was instead disguised as a 'safety issue'. Probably one of the very few times in the history of the FAA where there WASN'T a problem and they took action. Considering the FAA's very long history of not taking action until there's actually a problem, you don't really believe they took the safest sector of aviation and regulated even more it just because they felt like it, do you?

Sheesh! I've never seen someone supposedly in management in aviation who doesn't understand the inner workings of the fractional industry.

By the way, I'm still waiting for some accident/incident statistics from you showing that prior to 91K there was any problem.

PS- Did you notice how at the end of your Federal Register summary, it mentioned adjusting some 135 rules to be more in line with 91K? Since this is supposedly about safety at fracs, why modify 135 regs? Unless, of course, it was never about safety, and just a way to allow charters to be more competitive with the fracs. Thanks for helping make my point even further.

 

[dime line]

Arpey faces difficult negotiations this year with several of the airline’s unions, all of whose members have made billions of dollars’ worth of salary, benefit, and work-rule concessions to keep American out of bankruptcy. When union representatives pressed Arpey about the executives’ pay, at American’s annual meeting in May, Arpey said management and labor might have to “agree to disagree” about the suite life.

“This is an issue on which we may have a hard time finding common ground,” he said.

So how is it that unions don't help B19?