When nearly 50% of pilots refuse to fly their family on their own airline, you can bet I won’t be taking my family on anytime soon…
Budget carrier Allegiant Air has been hit with a biting exposé on CBS News’ 60-Minutes. The investigation calls into question the safety practices of the Nevada-based ultra-low-cost airline.
After watching the documentary below, I conclude this is not an unmerited hit piece, but a tremendous public service:
Take for example an incident in Las Vegas in 2015 where an Allegiant pilot was unable to control an MD-80 aircraft as it rolled down the runway. He aborted takeoff (barely).
Turns out the cotter pin (holding together essential components necessary to make the aircraft airworthy) was missing!
According to the detailed report from the FAA investigator, Allegiant and its maintenance contractor, AAR, failed to perform procedures that would have caught the error no less than five times. The report called it “a deliberate and systemic act of non-compliance” that had endangered thousands of passengers on more than 200 subsequent Allegiant flights.
Allegiant only received a slap on the wrist. This wasn’t a one-off incident. The CBS News report reveals a pattern of deferred maintenance and sloppiness in regards to safety.
Allegiant Pilots Don’t Trust Allegiant
In a survey (.pdf) conducted nearly two years ago, an alarming percentage of Allegiant pilots said they would forbid their family from flying on Allegiant. Per KTNV:
Almost half of the pilots said they will not allow their own families to fly on the aircraft. That is a stunning repudiation of the operations at Allegiant. I have never heard that before at a carrier. And that is not sour grapes. That is not to make publicity. That is a real fear that these pilots have. And the reason is because they’re on the front lines and observe day in and day out the way Allegiant skimps on maintenance, pushes their aircraft.
That was two years ago in April of 2016. As the 60 Minutes exposé demonstrates, nothing has changed.
A Pitiful Defense
Captain Eric Gust, VP of Operations at Allegiant, released a statement concerning the 60 Minutes investigation. As expected, it largely downplays and dismisses the allegations. One particular sentence, however, caught my attention:
According to the most recent data released by the Department of Transportation,
Allegiant has the second lowest cancellation rate of all US carriers – a fact which
demonstrates our operational integrity and commitment to safety and reliability.
That’s precisely the point! Allegiant does not cancel flights, instead choosing to fly airplanes in a condition that no other U.S. carrier would fly. Pilots are encouraged to do this. Far from demonstrating “operational integrity and commitment to safety and reliability” this news suggests that Allegiant takes far more safety risks than others.
CONCLUSION
When Allegiant once served Los Angeles to Honolulu, I toyed with flying them (one-way) just for the fun of it. I thought it would make an interesting review. But after watching the exposé and understanding that safety has been a lingering concern for years, I am very reluctant to even considering flying this airline (noting, of course, that even Allegiant’s broken MD-80s are far safer than driving my car…). What about you?
(H/T One Mile at a Time / image: Allegiant)
I thought this was an unfair hit piece (and I have never flown them and have no relationship.)
They have old MD80s. True. That’s problematic.
But the program made a lot of firing the captain who evacuated the plane when he was ordered by ground personnel not to evacuate. Presumably the ground personnel knew something the pilot did not see from his perch. There could have been emergency equipment coming, etc. I assume that an order from airport personnel not to evacuate trumps the captain’s thoughts.
I can tell you that what was said was unfortunatly true.. I have been on flights that took off hours late due to engine problems.. On flights with them that had to turn around and go back.. This has been a recurrent thing.. Sadly They are the only airline in my budget and i really only fly when i absolutely have to.
No person trumps the Captain of a flight. Only FAA regulations and company procedues.
Goddammit! #jk
Allegiant’s issues regarding reliability and more importantly, safety, are legion (see Skytrax for the “experience” and the Tampa Bay Times for their dogged coverage of maintenance issues). Sure, the 60 Minutes piece was a bit ham-fisted but hardly inaccurate. Cotter pin? Firing a pilot for putting safety above p-r? I get their business model. I just want to get there in one piece. Plan on flying them soon, Jack?
I don’t work for Allegiant but I’ve been telling friends and family for some time NOT to fly them. The number of serious incidents they have suffered is several orders of magnitude higher than it should be. When you haver serious events with that frequency its only a question of time before it happens to a crew thats tired, having a bad day and the dominos line up against you.
Now in fairness it must be noted that things have gotten much better as they have retired the MD-80 from their fleet. That being said the recent data still shows (based on the 60 minutes piece) that safety is an after thought. Their numbers remain far far above their peers and if the FAA was doing their job they should have been grounded some time ago.
@Jack I wonder if you watched the 60 minutes piece in full? Remember the flight where the cabin filled with toxic smoke on taxi in and the crew held the pax on the plane for 15-20 minutes? Would you have liked to be sitting in that toxic haze having to breathe it in? Would you have wanted your children to sit there and inhale toxic fumes? Now ask yourself why do you think that crew was so slow to do anything about it? Was it perhaps because they know the company has already fired a pilot for conducting an emergency evacuation?
And lets talk about that evacuation for a minute. The Captain has been told he had smoke in the cabin. He’s conducted an emergency landing and is now told he has an engine smoking. He announces he’s going to evacuate and suddenly there is an unidentified voice telling him not to. First does he even hear that transmission? Because when you decide to evacuate there are checklists to run and things get very busy in the cockpit. Second he’s not being told why he shouldn’t evacuate. So he’s getting worthless data from an unidentified source. Third by law the Captain is in command. He’s solely responsible for the safety of those customers. The Captain not some unidentified voice on the ground. He’s under no obligation to allow the judgment of some ground pounder to replace his own. Your assumption that their order trumps his is incorrect and not at all what the FARs stipulate. The guy in the truck should have told him why he was telling him not to evacuate. That would have been information that would have been useful. But even then the Captain has the legal authority to order an evacuation if he thinks its the safest course of action. He not only has the authority but the legal obligation.
What this piece highlights best is the tombstone nature of the FAA. Allegiant has been lucky enough to not suffer a fatal accident so the FAA keeps them in the air and continues to work with them. But if God forbid their luck runs out the comparisons to Value Jet are going to become all too apparent.
I want to know WHY the FAA is dragging their feet on this air lines?????? If it’s so bad why does the FAA not shut them down. Surely lives are more important than money. As for sitting there in a smoke filled cabin try to make me stay!!!!!!!!
All you have to do is look at the current political leadership to realize why nothing is being done. They pride themselves on reducing oversight regardless of consequences.