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Aviation History
1993
1993 - 0064.PDF
MR TRANSPORT US GAO recommends foreign safety checks BY K1ERAN DALY IN WASHINGTON DC The US General Accounting Office (GAO) is recom mending that the Federal Avia tion Administration step up inspections of visiting airliners with doubtful safety records. The watchdog agency says that the FAA has taken inade quate action against foreign car riers when it has found evidence that their aircraft are unsafe. In a study requested by Con gress, the GAO says that airlines from 94 countries operated about 900 flights a day into the USA in 1990 and 1991. About 50 FAA inspectors were dedi cated to examining them. The GAO praises a new FAA oversight-of-foreign-carriers pro gramme, launched in August 1991, and notes that when the Administration visited 15 coun tries which had generated new operator applications, it found that nine did not conform to international standards. Shortcomings include having no airworthiness inspectors, no regulation handbooks, a lack of proficiency checks and insuffi cient technical expertise to carry out a certification and sur veillance programme. The GAO's concern is that when the FAA finds malprac tices on one aircraft it does not examine other aircraft in the same fleet and, in at least one case, was late in informing other field offices dealing with the same carrier. It lists three instances when it says the FAA acted to remove, or have removed, unsafe aircraft Ansett agrees alliance with Alitalia Ansett Australia has added Alitalia to the list of interna tional airlines with which it has agreed commercial alliances. The Italian carrier would partici pate in joint advertising and promotion, preferential selling, reciprocal airport lounge rights Varig subsidiary Cruzeiro merged Brazilian flag-carrier Varig has fully incorporated its long standing subsidiary Cruzeiro do Sul Airlines. The two carriers were founded in 1927 and Varig's parent bought the smaller airline for operation as a separate unit in 1975. Now all Cruzeiro's aircraft are being painted in Varig colours, the SC designator is being dropped and the airline's staff are being hired directly by Varig. Varig says that the move makes it the 23rd-largest Inter national Air Transport Associa tion member in terms of revenue passenger-kilometres flown. D and computer reservation sys tem co-operation. The Australian airline, which is now expanding internationally having recently been awarded its first long-haul service to Malay sia, has tied lip deals with Cathay Pacific and All Nippon Airways. A commercial agree ment with British Airways has been dissolved following BA's purchase of a share of Qantas. At the same time, Ansett is to expand its deal with United Air lines into code-sharing, fol lowing the Ansett announcement that its pact with Northwest Airlines would not be renewed. The agreement with United covers only passengers boarding aircraft in Los Angeles, Chicago and Honolulu, and Ansett will now discuss possible code shar ing between all United and Ansett destinations for a "seam less" service. United, which had refused to discuss agreements with Ansett while the Northwest deal was in place, says it will now inject "a lot of resources" into the pro posed code-shares. • from service but did not inspect sister aircraft being operated into the USA. In the most recent case, an inspector found an aircraft with corrosion under both wings, miss ing rivet heads, and dented and gouged skin under two engines. In another example, the FAA found "structural integrity" problems during a superficial examination while passengers were disembarking and, in a third, a repair station reported serious safety problems on an airliner, including parts being held in place with "speed" tape. The GAO is particularly criti cal of a January 1992 incident in which the Canadian transport ministry suspended indefinitely the Boeing 727 operations of Mexican carrier TAESA and in formed the FAA. The information was not dis tributed to FAA field offices with oversight of TAESA for more than two months, how ever. During this time, the air line suffered four serious incidents in the USA on take-off, including two in which aircraft almost over-ran the runway at a New York airport. Following eventual FAA in spections, TAESA improved its practices and, with aid from Boeing, is developing a maint enance-control system and train ing maintenance personnel. • Judge suspends US post contract Kitty Hawk Air Cargo's new $1 billion contract to fly priority mail for the US Postal Service (USPS) has been ruled to be void by a judge. Incumbent Emery Worldwide will continue to operate the service until the dispute is set tled. Kitty Hawk had already changed its name to Postal Air in view of the contract size. A Washington DC judge cancelled the contract because one of Kitty Hawk's joint owners had contacted a USPS consultant involved in the selection process and discussed the possibility of his later being employed by Kitty Hawk. Criminal intent is not alleged. • Kitty Hawk is lost from the post, but Emery continues to deliver the goods DESTINATIONS • American Airlines associate American Eagle plans to intro duce twice-daily week-end Reno (Nevada) to Burbank (California) services on 31 Jan uary, using Saab 340Bs. • Brit ish Air Ferries has started daily overnight freight services from Southend (Essex) to Diisseldorf (Germany), replac ing an earlier operation on behalf of Air UK Cargo. • European services planned by Cathay Pacific for mid-1993 include: daily non-stop flights from Hong Kong to London Heathrow, Paris and Frankfurt; two one-stop services a week and two non-stop to London Gatwick (from 30 June); five one-stop flights to Manchester (from 1 June); four non-stop services to Zurich (after 1 May); and four weekly flights (of which two will be non stop) to both Rome and Am sterdam. Most will be operated with Boeing 747-400s. Bahrain will be dropped from Cathay European schedules from 1 May, but remains in the net work. • EVA Airways has launched transpacific services, with a Taipei-Los Angeles daily flight using 358-seat, four-class Boeing 747-400s. 10 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 20 - 26 January, 1993
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