Big government clears the air (of travelers)

Other than some excellent spot analysis by travel expert, NBC Today contributor and mega-blogger Peter Greenberg, I have seen little journalistic clarity in the wake of The Great American Airlines Debacle.

For those seeking a real-life example of what happens when the federal government is permitted to run amuck, thereby complicating our lives and creating a huge financial mess, drive over to any major airport and visit the American Airlines terminals.  

Even in an era in which airlines are quick on the flight cancellation trigger, American is enduring a nearly incomprehensible fiasco. This is American Airlines. This is not JetBlue stranding a a few hundred passengers on a tarmac or two for eight hours. This is the world’s largest airline and American’s customers are among the most loyal around (even after being robbed of the short-lived, more-legroom-in-coach perk).

Yet the numbers do not lie. AA cancelled 460 departures on Tuesday, and more than 1,090 flights on Wednesday. It forecasts more than 900 additional cancellations today, and is making no promises about returning to normal on Friday or even Saturday. The projection of 100,000 customers delayed or stranded is probably a low number.

These past few days have been an “economic 9/11″ for American. That’s not a stretch. These MD80 jets (averaging 140 seats) are the core of the airline. Have been as long as I can recall. They comprise nearly half of AA’s fleet of 650-plus aircraft. They are assigned to virtually all of the airline’s most vital business routes, including Chicago-New York, Chicago-Boston, Chicago-Los Angeles, Dallas-New York, Dallas-San Francisco and St. Louis-Chicago. There are 18 weekday AA flights from Chicago-O’Hare to New York-La Guardia. Seventeen are handled by MD80s.

Plus, MD80s are used exclusively on key leisure routes such as Dallas-Los Cabos and Dallas-Pam Springs.

The sad truth is: it never should have happened. It absolutely didn’t need to happen.

Mainstream media “reporters” are accepting — and spoon feeding us — the spin that the airline is addressing a serious threat to the safe operation of its planes caused by an obscure wiring problem.  The real reason is so obvious I do not understand how anyone can overlook it. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was nailed by a whistleblower who revealed it had been letting certain “airworthiness directives” slide, specifically in the area of fuselage inspections by mechanics of Southwest Airlines.

The headlines were alarming and potentially damaging to the FAA. It fined Southwest more than $10 million to show it is still boss, but that was just the beginning.

Knowing it would wreak havoc on the business and leisure traveler — and not caring — the FAA obviously made it known to American that it was going to play hardball with regard to the airworthiness directive tied to MD80 wiring (which was first issued in 2006). It left American no choice but to ground its planes all at once.

This is a sly, some would say sinister, move by the FAA. It makes American look like the culprit. It makes American take all of the heat. It tells the public that the airlines do not care enough about safety, and certainly not as much as does the uncompromised FAA.

It takes the FAA off the hook. The federal government was roundly criticized for bailing out Bear Stearns in the financial sector, but that wasn’t about one investment bank. For better or worse, that was a proactive bail-out to protect the U.S. economy. Now we have a horrfying example of what can happen when big government does the opposite of protecting the nation’s interests, when it shamefully covers up its bureaucratic bungling and shuns accountability.

To make matters worse, the FAA screwed American Airlines at a time when the major airlines have never been more economically vulnerable.

What should have happened? Logically, the FAA should have taken its lumps after the dust settled in the Southwest matter. It fined SW more than $10 million, so it was certainly not handing out a wrist slap. Next, it needed to quietly circle its own wagons inside FAA HQ, reassess its inspection compliance procedures and face the fact that it dodged a bullet (no SW planes were compromised) and must become much more vigilant.

Then, the airlines needed to be advised, quietly and calmly, that they were all expected to pay closer attention to existing (and future) airworthiness directives, and that they were all receiving an extension in order to systematically inspect and address the types of maintenance issues (i.e., wiring of redundant hydraulic systems in MD80s) so as to avert industry chaos.

Instead, the FAA has gleefully diverted all of the anxiety, anger and blame pent up in business and leisure travelers to American (and to a lesser degree, Delta and United). They bet, correctly, that the public’s anger would be tempered by the fact that the cancellations were safety related, even though they are really related to sustaining the bureaucratic status quo.

American is certainly not faultless. It could have taken the high road and systematically inspected the MD80 wiring over a period of many months during regularly scheduled maintenance for these aircraft. It did not have to act like a child who only obeys the rules when mommy and daddy are watching. And it certainly could have come up with a more honest explanation for the past few days when posting a notice on its web site, AA.com.

The notice reads: “We are very sorry for inconveniencing you with the cancellation of a portion of American Airlines’ flights which started on April 8.  Additional inspections of our MD-80 fleet are being conducted to ensure precise and complete compliance with the FAA’s directive related to wiring in the aircraft’s wheel wells. … Please be assured that safety of our customers is, and always will be, American’s first priority.”

Is that the muffled howling of FAA paper shufflers I am hearing?