Any organisation, which opposes the introduction of a new safety measure, is storing up potential trouble for itself, especially if its opposition is successful. On those grounds alone, the regional airlines and their supporters, which are opposing the application of large-airliner safety standards, to ten- to 19-seat turboprops are playing with fire, so matter how sincere they may be.
There is a widespread perception, at least partly backed by statistics, that regional turboprop operations are less safe than other types. It is against that background that the Federal Aviation Administration is attempting to tighten safety standards - and it is against that perception that the regional airlines should be considering their reactions to those moves.
The FAA is proposing that all ten- to 19-seaters be fitted with safety features such as fireproofed seats, floor-level emergency lighting and weather radar, which are already compulsory on larger airliners, and that regional-airliner operating standards and procedures should also be brought into line with those for larger craft.
There is an impressive list of organisations lined up either to oppose these proposed regulations altogether, or to have them watered down or their implementation delayed. The manufacturers, through their General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) trade body, argue that there is no proof that any of the measures proposed would have prevented any past accident or incident. Even if that assertion could be proved, it is dangerous to suggest that there never will be an incident, which could be prevented by such measures just because there has not been one so far.
Raytheon Aircraft suggests that operators of older aircraft such as its Model 99 should be exempted from the new regulations. That is an argument with some merit, especially if the new measures would require alterations which would be uneconomically expensive, particularly in relation to the value and likely remaining service life of the aircraft. In principle, however, if a regulation is worth implementing on new aircraft, it is worth implementing on old aircraft. If an old aircraft cannot physically be upgraded to meet the new regulations, perhaps it should be phased out just as noisy jet airliners are being phased out.
The Regional Airlines Association, their trade body, is also lined up in opposition, though not necessarily with the most watertight of arguments. The RAA argues that it would cost $50,000 to instal fireproof seats on a 19-seater: the FAA estimates $20,000. Even the lower price - at over $1,000 a seat - may seem a lot for replacing the fabric and padding of what in many of these cases is little more than a hammock. Even if the RAA's estimate is correct, the airline would have to recover $100 per aircraft per week - some $3 per flight or 20c per ticket - to get the investment back in a year. The argument is not totally sound, as there are other expenses involved in this upgrade, and most suppliers do not want to wait for a year before being paid, but it is a small sum in the wider sense of even regional-airline operations.
The RAA also claims that floor-level lighting will not help in the evacuation of small aircraft, but at the same time argues that floor-level lighting should only be required on new aircraft, not retrofitted to older ones. Either its first argument is sound, or its second argument is sound: if the first is provable, then it should not advance the second, even as a compromise.
Whatever the merits of such arguments, commonsense dictates that most of the FAA's proposals will be implemented: the operators and manufacturers would be better occupied negotiating the phasing of that implementation that opposing it. The FAA, for its part, would achieve its goals more quickly if it offered phasing from the outset. If it invoked all its proposals on new designs now, and made them progressive on existing designs over the next ten years, the opposition - like most of the older aircraft affected - might just fade away.
Source: Flight International
