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sbergman
Veejay
Joined: Sep 12, 2007
Posts: 2144
Status: Offline
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 Posted:
Dec 25, 2007 - 09:26 PM |
 
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| Post subject: Airline Safety in Asia |
I know hc recently got beaten up for posting a news story without commentary but I thought this NYTimes article on discount airlines in Asia might be of general interest especially at this time of year.
Does Low Cost Mean High Risk?
Damas Ardian/Bloomberg News
By JOSHUA KURLANTZICK
Published: December 23, 2007
IN the wake of September’s crash in Phuket of a jet from One-Two-Go Airlines, a Thai low-cost carrier, some aviation experts expressed shock that the plane had even tried to land. Shortly before the jet came down, other aircraft landing on the Thai island had warned traffic controllers of dangerously wet and windy conditions, and the One-Two-Go pilots could have canceled their landing. They didn’t, and more than 80 passengers were killed when the jet skidded beyond the runway and burst into flames.
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If they had followed One-Two-Go’s history, though, observers might not have been shocked by the crash. South Korean and Thai regulators previously had cited One-Two-Go’s parent company for poor safety measures. Worse, the crash revealed one of the biggest worries about travel in Asia today: In a developing region witnessing a boom in the number of low-cost airlines, can tourists trust their lives on these budget carriers?
Once dominated by large airlines like Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines, Asia has seen an explosion of low-cost carriers in the past five years. A pioneer, Air Asia, based in Malaysia, demonstrated that the region’s growing middle classes, who couldn’t afford full fare, would pay for cheaper seats.
Following Air Asia’s success, many others have followed, a boom of names like the India-based Air Deccan and Spice Jet and Philippines-based Cebu Pacific. Some low-cost airlines, like Singapore-based Tiger Airways, are even branching out into Australia and other regions. Governments have been happy to oblige, with Thailand allowing an expansion of carriers like One-Two-Go, Bangkok Airways and Nok Air.
The emergence of discount Asian carriers has enormous benefits for travelers. On the popular Bangkok-Singapore corridor, Air Asia is selling some round-trip tickets for about $150, compared with $500 or more on Singapore Airlines. The low-cost airlines have also boosted traffic to destinations like Luang Prabang, the old royal capital of Laos.
According to figures compiled by the international flight information company OAG, the number of low-cost flights in the Asia-Pacific region has grown from 3,900 six years ago to over 60,000 today. “The rapid pace of low-cost carrier expansion is set to continue,” says a report issued by Derek Sadubin, chief operating officer at the Center for Asia Pacific Aviation, another industry analyst. “The projected low-cost carrier fleet growth figures are staggering.”
But explosive growth can also make companies reckless. “Regulators are again concerned that the market has been growing too quickly,” wrote Nicholas Ionides of Flight International, a leading aviation industry publisher. Though many budget carriers have young fleets, some Asian carriers buy old planes that had been sitting, unused, in American deserts; on a Nok Air flight this year from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, what looked like duct tape was holding together seats and parts of the bathroom.
The expansion of low-cost carriers and the boom in travel in India and China create other worrying trends. They have sparked a severe pilot shortage in Asia, which may hurt safety as more inexperienced men and women settle into the cockpit. Meanwhile, some aviation analysts worry that Asian governments, caught in a low-cost frenzy, are allowing businesspeople to start airlines without enough capital on hand. Many Asian nations cannot compare with Western Europe and North America, where carriers like Ryanair and Southwest emerged in markets that already had strong safety standards.
“When the U.S.A. deregulated in the late 1970s and early 1980s, it was feared that it would increase the accident rate,” said David Learmount, a safety expert at Flight International magazine. “But it didn’t. Part of the reason it didn’t was that the Federal Aviation Administration heightened its safety oversight vigilance just in case.”
Southwest, for instance, has a strong safety record, yet in Thailand not only One-Two-Go but also the low-cost carrier Phuket Air have come under scrutiny. Phuket Air overshot a runway landing in eastern Thailand. Before taking off to Britain in 2005, passengers reportedly saw fuel leaking out of a Phuket Air plane and refused to fly on it. In 2006 Phuket Air was banned from flying into the European Union. (It was reinstated earlier this year.)
“Deregulation in Indonesia made already bad safety records even worse because the aviation authorities had no teeth, so there was no safety oversight to protect travelers,” Mr. Learmount said.
Indeed, Indonesia may be the scariest nation in Asia for fliers. In the past three years alone, a plane from Adam Air, an Indonesian low-cost carrier, vanished without a trace; another Adam Air plane cracked open upon landing; a Garuda Indonesia flight overran the runway in Yogyakarta and caught fire, killing at least 20; and an aircraft of Lion Air, another discount airline, went off a runway on Java, killing about 30.
Smart travelers are learning how to find solid information about Asia’s new airlines. The Aviation Safety Network (www.aviation-safety.net) contains statistics on air accidents broken down by carrier and region, as well as weekly updates of air safety incidents. Other Web sites like www.airsafe.com have similar data on incidents; www.airlinequality.com offers passengers’ takes on many budget carriers.
Government regulators outside Asia can also help. The International Aviation Safety Assessments program of the F.A.A. (www.faa.gov/safety/programs_initiatives/oversight/iasa) contains ratings of each nation’s air safety, while the European Union maintains a blacklist of airlines (www.ec.europa.eu/transport/air-ban/pdf/list_en.pdf) that are banned from flying into Europe. Currently, the European Union bans every Indonesian carrier.
Eventually, the opinions of foreign visitors may force Asian airlines to improve. “Watch Korea and Taiwan; their safety oversight was rubbish not long ago, but now it’s good,” Mr. Learmount said. “Korean Air lost its right to code-share with U.S. carriers — notably Delta — until it set up a credible safety management system.”
“The driving force” for safer planes is “competition itself,” he says. “People in the U.S. don’t fly with airlines that keep crashing.” |
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yinlin
Rocker
Joined: Feb 26, 2007
Posts: 643
Status: Offline
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Dec 25, 2007 - 10:01 PM |
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everybody doesnt fly with problem airlines but not only US citizen.
I can name easily a few of budget airlines with better flying records in Asia but sometimes it also depends where the mother company of the budget airline is located as different country might have different air policy in governing their airlines even though they have to fulfill IATA requirements, my 2 cents. |
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jzzzzzzz
SuperStar
Joined: July 07, 2006
Posts: 1378
Status: Offline
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Jan 04, 2008 - 02:00 PM |
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I've just come back from a trip to Cebu in the Phillipines with Cebu Pacific Air. I had to change in Manilla so 2 flights there and 2 flights back. The Shanghai to Manila flight was delayed by 2 hours and I missed my connection. They put us on the next flight without a fuss. This new flight was then delayed for about 90 minutes.
Our flight yesterday from Cebu to Manila was delayed for an hour but amazingly the Manila to Shanghai flight was on time and landed at PVG 20 minutes early!
The aircraft were new and the service good. It's standard budget airline service so you have to buy snacks/drinks.
I'm not sure if they have a general problem with delays though. While I was waiting for the Cebu-Manila flight yesterday another Cebu Pacific flight boarded, waited on the tarmac for a while, offloaded it's passengers and was cancelled! They did give people a voucher for a rescheduled flight which is more than you would get from Ryanair in Europe!
When I booked my flights you had to book two separate flights but they have improved the booking engine now so you can book the connecting flight together.
We were not able to check our luggage through on the outbound journey so had to collect it at Manila and handcarry it to the domestic terminal (via shuttle bus). On the return we were able to check in for both flights in Cebu and check the luggage through to PVG.
Cebu was a really nice place to spend the New Year. Feeling cold back in Shanghai. |
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Kiwi
Post Boaster
Joined: May 07, 2003
Posts: 4763
Status: Offline
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Jan 04, 2008 - 02:14 PM |
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But did you get back alive? |
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jzzzzzzz
SuperStar
Joined: July 07, 2006
Posts: 1378
Status: Offline
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Jan 04, 2008 - 02:42 PM |
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Yes, the flight was comfortable and all landings smooth. On Airline Quality the problems seem to be more the kind I experienced. Frequent delays and chaotic check in procedures. Luckily we were checked through on the return as the Cebu Pacific check in area in Manila looked like a complete joke. |
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Me_Again
Reacher
Joined: Dec 06, 2005
Posts: 305
Location: Lost
Status: Offline
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Jan 04, 2008 - 05:24 PM |
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From the NY Times 'eh? More American "news" trash.
The reality is that airlines all over the world are looking to cut costs, including those in developed western countries. Asia not really different from other places such as Russia, Eastern Europe, Latin America etc....Give it a few year and we can add the USA to the list as their economy goes bust.
Statistically though, air travel is still very safe, and most crashes occur because of human error. |
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We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give. - Sir Winston Churchill |
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Adrienne
Rocker
Joined: Mar 01, 2003
Posts: 779
Location: Shanghai, China
Status: Offline
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Jan 04, 2008 - 06:21 PM |
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sberman. many thanks for posting this. the main thing i got out if was the two sites that you can check passenger's reports on airlines. much prefer to read their feedack.
Adrienne
http://www.shanghaiprops.com |
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Kiwi
Post Boaster
Joined: May 07, 2003
Posts: 4763
Status: Offline
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Jan 04, 2008 - 07:11 PM |
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You should hear about the time I flew a Chinese airline and the passengers had to land the plane themselves! Turned out the CEO of the airline was letting his precocious 11 year old nephew fly some of the quieter routes. I know it sounds crazy but I think he was trying to cut costs or something. The problem was that the boy had ADD, drank about a gallon of Fanta , and forgot to take his Ritalin. What were the dumb air hostesses thinking? I wonder about Chinese people sometimes. So we have this out of control Chinese boy bouncing off the walls of an aircraft which is rapidly plummeting earthwards, and the crew are racing around asking if there is a pilot on board. Only in Asia, eh? "This is China" I kept telling myself as I took deep breaths. Well they couldn't find a civilian pilot but they did find an alcoholic fighter pilot who hadn't touched the controls of an aircraft since the Vietcong tortured his buddy some years previously. Great guy but a bit of an oddball. For a while there I was wondering if we were going to make it. Of course as usually happens in China everything worked out in the end. Really though it was all so unprofessional. |
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leidelaohu
Wonder Wit
Joined: June 11, 2007
Posts: 3725
Status: Offline
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Jan 04, 2008 - 07:35 PM |
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^^^ heh heh heh
You're just blowing a lot of smoke trying to keep people from noticing that Air China (PR China) has an excellent safety record while China Air (ROC) has one of the worst ...  |
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Stark
Barker
Joined: Mar 19, 2006
Posts: 168
Status: Offline
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Jan 04, 2008 - 08:29 PM |
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Kiwi, that was brilliant. You write like Tom Robbins. |
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shanghaiceltic
Board Royalty
Joined: Sep 20, 2005
Posts: 7588
Location: Perth WA
Status: Offline
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Jan 07, 2008 - 01:49 PM |
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When you are sitting in your airline seat just remember just about everything around you has been bought from the lowest bidder.
I worked with supplying spare parts for aircraft engines with a previous company and the scariest thing we had to deal with was some equipment sent back for repair.
When the serial numbers were checked on each item they turned out to have come from a pair of aircraft engines that were part of a plane that crashed in Columbia in South America.
The engines dissapeared when they were being sent to Bogota with the rest of the aircraft for the aircraft accident investigators to check.
The parts from those engines turned up all over the world with false documentation and it would appear some were used by some third world countries national airlines.
Flight International once made the comment about Indonesian airlines that they replace by attrition rather than wear and tear. |
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I have parrallel bars at home, one for gin and one for whiskey |
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SnappySammy
Shanghai Royalty
Joined: Nov 01, 2007
Posts: 9729
Status: Offline
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Jan 08, 2008 - 12:39 AM |
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| jzzzzzzz wrote: |
| Yes, the flight was comfortable and all landings smooth. On Airline Quality the problems seem to be more the kind I experienced. Frequent delays and chaotic check in procedures. Luckily we were checked through on the return as the Cebu Pacific check in area in Manila looked like a complete joke. |
I flew the same airline> I was a little concerned at check in when they asked for dental records instead of photo ID |
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