Word: valujet
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...also because, despite the full planes and record profits, the industry is still burdened with a large amount of debt and faces big capital outlays for new equipment. The U.S. has the oldest fleet in the developed world. Nor is the threat from discount carriers over. Although the ValuJet crash took with it the public's confidence in upstart airlines, the barrier to entry is still relatively low. Capital, pilots, planes and entire outsourced airline service industries are readily available...
...spoke system was created in the late 1970s and early '80s to create "fortress hubs" and full planes. For passengers, this means fewer nonstop flights, reduced meals and higher fares. The strategy faltered when low-fare carriers landed in the hubs and ticket prices dropped exponentially. But the ValuJet tragedy has devastated the low-cost carriers. When ValuJet recently announced plans to end service between Mobile, Alabama, and Atlanta (a Delta fortress hub), the lowest available fare on Delta shot up overnight from...
Witnesses portrayed the crash as a horrific consequence of a chain of irresponsibility shared by ValuJet, SabreTech (one of the airline's maintenance companies) and ultimately the Federal Aviation Administration. Volatile oxygen-generating canisters were incorrectly marked empty, packed in cardboard boxes that lacked hazardous-warning labels, and stowed in the cargo hold of the DC-9 without required safety caps designed to prevent discharges that could start a fire...
...ValuJet maintenance chief David Gentry said his company accepted blame, but he insisted that it was SabreTech's job to equip the canisters with safety caps and pack the shipment properly. Failure to prevent this incompetence was laid to inspectors for the FAA, who complained that overwork and understaffing had made it tough to oversee the fast-growing ValuJet. Yet an FAA manager said he called for a review of ValuJet's authorization to fly three months before Flight 592 plunged into the Everglades shortly after taking off from Miami. The manager, John Tutora, said his report was ignored...
Experts say more improvements in vigilance are both needed and likely. "The public is being heard," observes flight-safety expert Jerome Lederer. "A sea change in attitude is coming." ValuJet resumed flying on Sept. 30 after being grounded for 15 weeks in the wake of the crash...