By the time you read this, I hope the International Association of Machinist and Aerospace Workers (IAM), Comair and the FAA have reached agreement and reinstituted the maintenance Aviation Safety Action Program (Asap) at Comair. It’s a sad day indeed for air safety when a voluntary program with so much safety potential becomes the pawn in a labor-management disagreement and the FAA is unable or unwilling to mediate the dispute effectively. Everyone loses–the company, the employees and especially the passengers.
We have seen this before with pilots at Delta, American and US Airways when they pulled out of their Asap programs in disputes about the handling of Asap reports. Fortunately, those programs have been reinstated. However, we will never know what important safety information was forever lost in the interim. And while much is made of the enforcement and disciplinary consideration afforded to employees who voluntarily provide safety information even if it implicates them in a regulatory violation, companies clearly have the most to gain from employee reports that have the potential to reduce expensive incidents and accidents. And the real beneficiaries are the passengers, who are entitled to the safest possible system.
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