Well, let’s see, now — what has happened recently in the world of aviation. Marion Blakey, departing from her job as administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, chewed out most everybody. Seems like everything is the fault of everybody except the feds. She jumped all over the airlines because they schedule too many flights at peak periods. Well, duh. As one airline bigshot said, they schedule flights when people want to travel.
What else?
Oh, yes, we’re going to get 406 MHz ELTs. Actually, I like that. The 121.5 MHz ELTs — originally mandated by Congress, let us never forget — have a record that is abysmal. Something like 97 percent of all alerts from those have been false alarms. Much of that is probably user error, but the problem exists, nevertheless. We need the 406 MHz ELTs, which will identify the airplane and the location.
On the other hand, I don’t think the guvmint should mandate — as is being considered — that every GA airplane be forced to buy one (some estimate that would cost about $1,000 per airplane). Let’s just say that all new aircraft must have them, thus handling the whole thing by attrition.
The authorization bill stumbles on through the guvmintal process, but then Bush has threatened to veto any bill that exceeds his spending limits (the man has limits?). One version of the bill has a rider that would end the so-called ‘age 60 rule’ for airline pilots. We are definitely facing a pilot shortage, and it seems logical to hang onto those doddering, old-but-experienced pilots until they get to be 65 and thus totally useless (I know, having passed age 65 more’n a year ago).
But let us move to the most important recent event in aviation, at least if importance is measured by the attention of the media. The media reported big time the fact that Southwest Airlines (SWA) asked a young lady to get off its airplane because she was “inappropriately” dressed. She was later invited back on, apologized to, and offered free tickets, but in the meantime the story surely stirred up the pot.
This was from the same airline that hit the market in the 1970s with flight attendants in scant uniforms promising to move their tails for us. SWA, flying out of Love Field, used a lot of double entendre with that word Love and, in general, made us all feel, or at least wish, that — well, never mind, it never came true.
You can find a vast quantity of opinions on this. Some say they should kick everyone off every plane if they don’t have on suits and, for women, gloves. Others are all in favor of encouraging nudity on the same flights.
Personally, I am often disgusted at the way folks dress on flights, but don’t want to pass laws prohibiting what is or is not inappropriate. That would create a bigger mess than Katrina did. FEMA might even get into it.
