Another excuse for another "meltdown"
As I'm sipping my morning cup of coffee and catching up on yesterday's news via my local Spokesman Review I notice we are in the middle of another "meltdown" of one of our national institutions - this time it is the airline industry.
Apparently the airlines have grown cozy with the FAA and decided that they no longer had to follow the rules because their buddies at the FAA would let them slide. Now that the FAA has decided to hold their feet to the fire the airlines are grounding flights left and right and, of course, blaming "the government" for their problems.
The problem is that according to the FAA the airlines knew exactly what was expected of them and were given 18 months to comply - here's an excerpt of an Associated Press story -
FAA spokeswoman Lynn Tierney said the agency is simply doing its job.
"We are aware and sympathetic ... but the role is clear, it's a regulator's role," Tierney said. "We understand the disruption this causes, but (the airlines) had 18 months to complete the work."
Tierney was referring to the safety order issued on the Boeing Co. MD-80 aircraft that recently have been grounded. The FAA ordered visual inspections of certain wire bundles on those planes after reports of shorted wires, evidence of worn-down power cables, and fuel system reviews conducted by the manufacturer. The order was effective Sept. 5, 2006, and the airlines had 18 months to comply.
So let me get this right - the airlines had ample warning of exactly what was expected of them and now they want to blame the FAA for actually enforcing the rule!
Just like with the "mortgage meltdown," and the "housing meltdown," everyone seems to be quick to blame the regulatory agencies responsible for the industry in question. The trouble with this is that we (those of us not running these companies) should be able to rely upon these companies being run in an ethical and legal manner even if there were NO regulatory agencies to oversee them. They are all run by highly paid, highly educated individuals - and many of those individuals are in turn monitored by a board of directors.
With that much brain power involved we shouldn't have to worry about any of these companies behaving contrary to the public good.
