Monday, November 21, 2016

Why I won't fly Allegiant







I normally love to watch "Air Disaster" and any show like that.  However as I turned it on this morning to watch while I ate breakfast I was greeted with the Alaska Airlines Flight 261episode.  I lost my appetite.  You see the reason I did is because dh used to work for an airline, that had more than 4 issues with jack screws on elevators (which was the cause of the Alaska Crash).  Many of these shows I find interesting, this one I found scary because of the similarities of his previous employer.  Unlike Alaska who I am pretty sure given their safety record since then seems to have learned their lesson, pretty sure dhs previous employer has not as evidenced by this article .

Sure I have heard people say its fine and that the press over blows everything .  I'm sorry, dh worked there for three years and was in the safety department for some of that time, I would never set foot on one of their planes, not at least until their CEO is fired or leaves.  You see company safety culture comes from the top down.  Everyone wants to believe that the airlines would never put you in danger but that's not quite the truth.  There is a matrix of risk vs profit.  Most airlines are smart and make this a small percentage.  However some airlines want to make a larger percent on the profit side, which means cutting corners and sweeping things under the rugs.  This is the reason dh is no longer at his previous employer, because no matter how loudly he and others he worked with demanded change in maintenance and safety no one higher up would allow changes to be made.

You may wonder if things are so bad why hasn't the FAA done anything about it.  Well to be honest the FAA is more reactionary than anything else.  Take for instance Value Jet  this airline (scary enough the CEO at Allegiant was at Value Jet) had many big problems before its final crash. Only after the crash did the FAA pull their ticket.

I'm not saying don't fly them, I can't tell you what to do, or what not to do, god knows as long as people save $10 they will fly on a winged elephant.  I'm simply telling you as a pilots wife, why I will not fly them.