The US Department of Defense (DoD) has moved to ensure that foreign airlines that codeshare with US carriers have equal standards of safety.
Six major US carriers signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the DoD on 6 August agreeing that their codeshare partners will undergo an initial safety and operations assessment followed by reviews every two years.
The cost in each case will be picked up by the US partner airline. In most cases, this will not represent an additional cost as US carriers routinely do their own assessment of a prospective codeshare airline. But the MoU lends a formal link to the DoD's involvement in a US carrier's choice of codesharers.
Formal talks between the North American Air Transport Association and the DoD began in January, but military chiefs have been keen to put in place a safety oversight programme since the 1985 crash of a chartered Douglas DC-8 in Newfoundland, killing 248 US soldiers. About 200,000 DoD staff travel each year on foreign airlines codesharing with US majors. "We were evaluating the US carriers that we use to transport our personnel, but not their partners. It was a dichotomy," says DoD assistant deputy under-secretary Mary Lou McHugh.
Source: Airline Business
