At United Airlines, Does Making Money Trump Safety?

At United Airlines, does making money trump safety?

A recent Aviation Week article quotes United CEO Jeff Smisek saying, “We’re going to run the airline for profit maximization …” That made me wonder a bit.

Then I noticed last week’s Wall Street Journal story in which the airline strongly chastised its pilots for cockpit safety issues the company warned could lead to an accident. United’s tone throughout the story made it appear the company had just uncovered a scorpion’s den of safety violations created by a bunch of rogue pilots who cared little about the safety of their millions of passengers.

But there’s another side to the story and calling it eye opening is a bit of an understatement.

After reading the WSJ story broken by Andy Pasztor, I began receiving a series of intriguing documents from some United pilots that again made we wonder if United is too focused on money, so much so in fact that the company might be avoiding responsibility for financially-focused policies that appear to already be undermining safety at the airline. (Note: this story was edited after it posted to correct an error in my referencing the NYTimes, when the story should have mentioned The Wall Street Journal)

While some readers might assume the information I received was simply a reaction to the company’s indictment of its pilots, it now actually seems to be the other way around. Among what I received, was a letter from a pilot member of Local 12, the Chicago council of the Air Line Pilot Association penned by their local safety officials. They were considerably more blunt about the problem at the airline. “[At United] economics trump safety,” they said. Pilots told me that their training at United, once the envy of the aviation industry, has deteriorated to become more of an industry joke.

The documents also proved that the union was way ahead of the airline’s merger-related safety issues that became the focus of the NYTimes story. United’s ALPA Master Executive Council (MEC) in November 2011 sent Congress, at the request of those legislator’s, a report called, “Inadequate Pilot Training and Compromised Safety by United Airlines Within the Process of Merging the Continental and United Airlines’ FAA Operating Certificates.” Three and half years ago the report called attention to safety issues driven by poor training and a host of other merger-related topics. Where all the pilot’s concerns have been sitting the past three and a half years though is anyone’s guess.

The Plot Thickens

Important to this current story are also the recent behaviors of a number of United management personnel the pilots claim are responsible for the not-so-subtle intimidation of crews to convince pilots to bend to management’s financially driven demands. The letter I received names one of the more offensive managers as Cal Janacek, United’s Chief Pilot at the Chicago O’Hare base.

Commenting on Janacek, the union said, “The pattern of his behavior [in dealing with pilots] includes threats, intimidation and outright bullying. We are also seeing an alarming increase in punishments using the threat of re-training to “help get a pilot’s mind right’ [and thinking in the company mode].” Pilots being sent back for retraining, is considered one of the ultimate shames and indicates the organization has lost faith in that aviator.

A union-reported incident said the chief pilot unexpectedly showed up in the cockpit of an airplane full of passengers sitting at the gate. Janacek is said to have inserted himself into the middle of an operational delay problem even though the captain never requested his help. As the captain tried to explain the situation, because the airplane was going to be late, the chief pilot is reported to have told the captain, “Don’t throw that safety shit at me [as a reason for not departing] …”

In another, a different assistant chief pilot told the captain and first officer of a flight they needed to get their airplane into the air or else. The crew was trying to figure out how to carry a passenger headed for deportation that they also believed had been exposed to Ebola. The rest of the crew, including the flight attendants was pretty worried. The assistant chief is reported to have told the captain, “go now, or get your belongings and leave the airplane.” The crew chose to leave the airplane, which left all the passengers wondering what had just happened.

The pilots told me that the robustness of the airline’s once-great training program has also suffered with recurrent training devolving into a time-wasting effort, much of it focused around simplistic computer-based questioning. Worst of all … they told me the FAA operations inspector who oversees the airline’s flight operations has known about United’s training and safety issues for years, but has essentially turned a blind eye.

So keep these issues in mind the next time you climb aboard a United flight. My guess is the situation will get worse long before it gets better, so stay tuned.

Rob Mark, Publisher