FAA to audit EK?

[climbtofl410]

Can anyone confirm that the FAA will be conducting an audit of Emirates?

I heard the audit is routine and will occur in January, they will be looking at the Fatigue issue which was highlighted by a call to their hotline a few months ago. The audit will be carried out onsite in Dubai.

Fact or rumor?

[Schnowzer]

Not auditing EK, auditing GCAA in Abu Dhabi and Dubai from my understanding. Don't believe it has anything to do with fatigue specifically.

[MrMachfivepointfive]

Last FAA audit of the GCAA was in 2000. Looks like a once every 10 years thing.

[ironbutt57]

Why would the FAA be concerned with fatigue at Emirates, when it's not even concerned with fatigue at home!!:ugh:

[sheiken around]

Actually Iron, I think you'll find that the FAA and NTSB are reviewing and have proposed new FAR regs re. flight and duty regulations.

The airlines are lobbying hard against them, but let's see what happens when it goes to congress soon.....

[tcasguy]

I believe if you look, you will find the fatigue based regs died like every other FAA initiative that involves safety and is too hard to tackle....

Fly Safe!

tg

[Instant Hooligan]

FYI, TCAS if you look closely you may find they cancelled the proposed rule changes from the mid 90's to make way for the new rules which are transitting the house and senate at present.

[Marooned]

If the FAA are to audit us then this is the time to write to them, wherever you come from, and let them know in no uncertain terms what is happening in EK.

Ask them to consult directly with the pilots, not the invited, 'selected', non-representative bunch of the usual cronies, but those on the line doing the insane rosters.

If anyone can make the GCAA react to the current conditions imposed by those who do not, or rarely fly preferring to hide behind a desk, this is the time.

This is a chance to do something positive... DON'T WASTE IT.

[fatbus]

Won't y'all be disappointed if EK passed an FAA audit.

If you have taken the time to read the interm LOSA audit you will find , generally, a good group of pilots with pilots best interests at hand.

[Marooned]

Certainly won't be surprised when we pass, the audit is almost a done deal.

All I'm saying is that we have chance to voice our concerns, independently and outside of EKs control.

[fractional]

Unfortunately "politics" play a big role and the only way to catch and take action is when a pilot or an airline operates with illegal/outdated documentation. Very rarely they would catch a pilot flying outside his legal limits unless some crazy crew control would allow it to happen.
As it stands right now, there isn't a way to help safety-minded crews or ground staff report illegalities because all seems legal according with the respective OMs. ASRs are supposed to be confidential, but in today's date, it's a trap for many. Moral/ethical values are long gone and gone will be those managers who play the "devil's advocate" in most cases. When something happens, crews' fault! Operators are not at fault if crews didn't sleep day or night and an accident/incident happened. All human beings have an on/off sleep switch :ugh:.

[lowstandard]

Dear FAA,

Look at all Annex 2 flights from Asia in December.

[Marooned]

While you at it take a close look at:


Claimed Crewing levels verses the actual/future requirements.

Rostered hours/actual duty times. Cumulative time zone effects on fatigue/health. Current sickness levels. Recent doctors resignations (5!).

Flight time limitations abuses, regulations interpreted without challenge always to the detriment of the crews.

Fatigued crews allowed no rest on the flight deck.

Lack of impartial representation, ‘closed culture’, intimidation from management.

The 'close' relationship of GCAA to the Airline it is regulating.

[fatbus]

This is going to be fun to watch because guys will get themselves all worked up and for nothing.

I will add, make sure the FAA knows we are to wear hats on external's and ties on in the car

[kingoftheslipstream]

These audits are political exercises in good manners really - nothin' 'll come of it.

They'll come in with their white gloves on, stick out a finger and wipe the coffee table and sniff... and disappear.:oh:

It's gonna turn in to an exercise in good publicity for Management and will help with creatin' the illusion that the airline is well managed. It also squares off the FAA against the Oz NTSB... one of whom may be somewhat critical of current practices whilst the other will soon attest to the usual shallow bona-fides and nothin' will change.:(

Look at how well they responded to the LOSA audit. Two new pieces of paper: outline the minor changes to the pre-departure process and your choice of coffee/tea? And that change isn't even working properly since engineering and fueling are still cluster-$#%&ed over it. And they haven't even started to look at outstations... There has been no supervision/follow up/ enforcement of even this tiny tiny change... Just VP-Flt Ops writin' a memo (more than two years ago!) saying he knows how bad it is and he isn't sure what we're goin' to do yet. He implores us to keep on tryin' to do the right thing and minimize interruptions on the flight deck...

This is like a General tellin' his army: I know we're losing, can you ask the enemy to stop shootin' at you? :confused:

There are calm assurances on paper thet there are "teams" devoted to lookin' at a couple of "important" areas... but nothin' of substance is happening.

We as pilots are still bein' fed the line that we are the last line of defence in Dr. Reason's Swiss Cheese model. The lovely sleight of hand that resulted in this model bein' pirated by magagement to be used to remind Pilots of how crititcal they are to the safe operation is beyond belief. It's a kind of creepy psychological operation in motivation... with no real change of practice behind it.

Every other layer of cheese - from the top of the operation to the Chief pilot on type has done sweet tweet to effect change or improvement. (The exception to this seems to be MM and his take no prisoners attitude towards the training department. This is, imho a welcome changes) Nothin' has improved or changed. 40,000 incident reports this year (Yippee!:yuk:) What has improved? Do we still have an insane amount of night ops scheduled back to back? Minimum days off? A stupidly conceived/designed/engineered/implimented CRC in the A345/A380? No double seat/curtained privacy in the A343? A 20% pay cut for '09 an' we're supposed to be happy professionals? Statements in the worldwide press from HH and MF identifying a probable 1 BILLION USD PROFIT for the fiscal year and we're still being screwed over by the unfair productivity changes, loss of contractually obliged Leave, some pilots had their ALD removed or altered, the messing with the accomodation allowance, accomodations standards...Tampering with the bid system... totally unresponsive fleet management to any form of input (JM and PP: 'out of office auto-reply'... have a nice day!):ugh:

There's about 2300 of us - clamoring to be heard, passing up lots of observations, lots of good intentions and an enormous amount of good will and experience being brought to bear on myriad challenges and nothing is changing.

Most of the ASRs we submit are mandatory submissions as directed by the FOM. Some are voluntary. (I'm not sure what the percentage breakdown is - I'd love to know). This creates the illusion that there's a culture of reportin' within our flight deck operation. That's not the same thing as having a true real culture of reporting -it's a manufactured one.

Flight Ops management have subordinated the Flight Safety department to becoming the data gathering watch-dog. Flight Safety gather the QAR/ELOM data (in itself a useful thing of course) but the line separating a true 'blame-free' reporting culture has been erased: We basically only report on what we know the ELOM/QAR data has already busted us for. Flight Ops management use their stick to hit is for our transgressions (even though modern error models are overlooked) and everything else is ignored.

Indian and African ATC... Still a nightmare - I'm in my 14th year in this place -who the hell approved RVSM in Africa when they don't even have proper ATC? NO RADAR coverage in RVSM areas and some aircraft operations not required to have Transponders? JEEEZUZ H MURPHY! How the hell does this stuff get allowed to happen? Where the hell is the thinking goin' on around here?

Is there any at all?

Or is there just the insane demand for a more profitable operation?

Keep 'er safe Ladies 'n Gents. I hope 2010 won't be the year of our first hull loss, but the signs and portents are not in our favour. It's a nightmare out there.

[ironbutt57]

Yes, a political exercise it is...the FAA should sort out it's mess back home before casting judgement overseas...

[IXNAT]

Does FAA provide safety oversight for international flights?

Under the International Convention on Civil Aviation (Chicago Convention) each country is responsible for the safety oversight of its own air carriers. Other countries can only conduct specific surveillance activities, principally involving inspection of required documents and the physical condition of aircraft.
FAA conducts the International Aviation Safety Assessment Program (http://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/iasa/) (IASA), assessing the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) of each country that has carriers operating to the United States. Because of the provisions of the Chicago Convention and national sovereignty, FAA is not permitted to evaluate a foreign carrier within its own sovereign state.
An IASA assessment determines if the foreign CAA provides oversight to its carriers that operate to the United States according to international standards. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a United Nations agency, and Annexes 1, 6, and 8 of the Chicago Convention develop those standards.
If the CAA meets standards, FAA gives that authority a Category 1 rating.

Category 1 means the air carriers from the assessed state may initiate or continue service to the United States in a normal manner and take part in reciprocal code-share arrangements with U.S. carriers.
IASA ratings (http://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/iasa/media/iasaws.xls) (MS Excel) are released to the public.What happens if a CAA does not meet ICAO standards?

If the CAA does not meet standards, FAA gives that CAA a Category 2 rating.

Category 2 means the air carriers from the assessed state cannot initiate new service and are restricted to current levels of any existing service to the United States while corrective actions are underway.
FAA does not support reciprocal code-share arrangements between air carriers for the assessed state and U.S. carriers when the CAA has been rated Category 2. During this time, the foreign air carrier serving the United States is subject to additional inspections at U.S. airports.