Based on a very short tv segment with Duane Worth (the ALPA Chairman), which I barely saw on tv today, there appears to be some influence from pilot unions such as ALPA, (maybe from the APA, FPA, Teamsters) on the redesign of cockpit doors, but it is very unlikely that we can influence anything else that the FAA does, as has always been the case. This is despite the FAA having been created decades ago by ALPA initiatives within the US federal government, in order to create some safety regulations for the industry, despite many of them (such as eight total hours in a hotel for solid sleep, shower, breakfast and checkin/out) being unacceptable minimums or (duty day) maximums etc for decades.
The FAA still seem to use their cost/benefit analysis to determine what should be changed. Pardon this remark, as I've used before on Pprune, but without numerous revenue passenger fatalities at one time, the FAA seems to never enact any serious recomendations from the NTSB (the transport accident investigation board), unless there is negligible cost involved, the idea of which is difficult to imagine.
If we had no pilot organizations, such as our US pilot unions, we would not even have a voice in any FAA decisions. We would then only be a large motley group of "rugged individualists" .
A uniformed First Officer who I not long ago flew with (on a twin-engine turbofan) was repeatedly scanned by one airport security employee while the FO noticed several pieces of luggage go by on the x-ray monitor with nobody else there to watch the monitor for suspicious objects. But then the security company would earn less profit if it hired or staffed more such employees, even at their minimum wages. This was just a very tiny tip of our "US airport security shield" problem-iceberg. And that clown was ignoring multiple objects due to a pilot in uniform, who had at least one company ID card in a cereal bowl by the x-ray machine, where anyone could have stolen it from him. And in this same airport, our employees who work on the ramp, including catering employees, were never required to go through x-ray machines here until a few months ago: only our gate agents, pilots and flight attendants were forced to! This was an FAA decision from years ago.
And this one small episode for that one pilot (not including many others) was a few years after police in Manila accidentally uncovered a chilling plot to set off powerful bombs in about a dozen US-registered jumbo jets in ONE DAY!
Why wasn't the FAA enforcing its job regarding x-ray screening (using some common sense) for the last several years (at least inside the airports) and why were the airlines allowed to hire "security companies" with such employees? Was the US Congress unwilling to give the FAA enough money for airport security, or was the FAA not requiring airlines to verify what security staff were doing (at least to stop the cranks and imbalanced), not that this could have prevented this week's horrific tragedies.
There are thousands of basic US employees at Burger King and/or McDonald's who reportedly earn about the same pay as US airport security employees. Should airport security companies have a much larger field of applicants from which to choose, based on much higher salaries, with a litle bit more prestige attached to the job description? An agent at Newark, NJ (where on hijacked plane departed?) said that the security companies at KEWR fire people every week, maybe several.
Pardon the long sermon, but this is meant FOR any media, US govt officials or laymen who read Pprune and are unaware of what pilots and flight attendants have often noticed for years and years. This topic is now receiving serious attention from our US government and the mass mediabecause many people have died, and for that reason alone.
[ 17 September 2001: Message edited by: Ignition Override ]
[ 17 September 2001: Message edited by: Ignition Override ]