One Mile At A Time asks whether JSX, which offers convenient flights from private terminals and a premium product, should be banned? The Air Line Pilots Association thinks so because the carrier is able to circumvent rules designed to limit entry into the pilot profession, like the 1,500 hour rule and they suggest using private terminals compromises security.
Everyone acknowledges what JSX does is legal from the DOT and FAA who allow it to even ALPA. ALPA argues they take advantage of a ‘loophole’ by using aircraft with no more than 30 seats, never ‘intended’ to support an operation that gives passengers the similar access to convenient terminals as private air travel offers to the wealthy. And One Mile at a Time is sympathetic. He acknowledges that JSX is safe, and the rules ALPA wants to impose are non-sensical, yet wishes “to be balanced.”
While I want JSX to succeed and I think it’s time for the 1,500-hour rule to go, I also think it’s pretty obvious that the airline is operating using a loophole. Should that loophole be closed? I think it’s totally fair to express concerns in this regard, and I also think that consumers booking JSX don’t necessarily realize the distinction between the standards JSX is being held to compared to other airlines.
Lucky worries that “a bunch of new operators not subject to the same requirements as other airlines” wouldn’t be as safe as JSX, but that’s an issue for regulators not a reason to ban JSX.
There’s no question that JSX has tailored its operations to conform to the law as it is currently written. That is precisely what they should do, and what many modern businesses do to be successful. There are too many government barriers to entry in aviation to offer a me-too product from crowded airports and succeed. Instead, they’ve found a way to innovate for customers, giving more people access to private-style aviation.
They have backing from JetBlue, United and Qatar. They even pass muster for JetBlue to codeshare with them. And Lucky acknowledges they are safe and innovative, so there is no justification for blackballing them – other than consistency to impose rules that he acknowledges are bad.
I’m all for cutting the 1,500-hour rule and potentially raising the pilot retirement age. I also think JSX is perfectly safe to fly.
The best way to get there is this demonstration case showing the benefits of the change. No wonder ALPA doesn’t like it!
The 1,500 hour rule (which Europe doesn’t have, yet has just as strong a record on safety) doesn’t enhance safety and neither does the 65 year retirement age when pilots still have to pass health checks.
Hiring recently-retired senior captains (who get to spend their nights at home since over 90% of JSX flights return to base each evening), their cockpits often have more average hours than mainline legacy carriers do. TSA has not expressed the concerns over their safety regime which ALPA offers to DOT, which doesn’t even have jurisdiction of airport security.
ALPA’s move is 100% meant to protect a rule that limits entry into the profession. It makes air travel less accessible especially to smaller markets and for smaller O/D routes that they can serve successfully with just 30 seats, while ALPA-driven rules have meant a shortage of pilots that leaves even 76 seat regional jets ground across the industry (and Boeing 737s grounded at Southwest). That’s bad for the country and even bad for safety when it pushes people to drive to further away airports.
ALPA is pursuing self-interest not only at the expense of a legal business, and at the expense of customers benefit from their product, they are doing it *at the expense* of safety.
I fly private once in a while – prob 5-7 times per year – with my family. Often times at least the captain, and in some cases both pilots, are recently forced-retired captains from legacy airlines. Tens of thousands of hours. I feel EXTREMELY safe with them up front — much more so than with the kids flying RJs for the legacies.
The way the doomsayers are screeching you would think that Part 135 is the wild west where drunk cowboys are hopping off their horses directly into cockpits of ERJs as they race down the runway.
Part 135 has different standards than Part 121, but those are still pretty darn robust standards when applied properly. The biggest issue with most incidents/accidents by Part 135 operators is non compliance rather than actual deficiency of standards. If the argument is that Part 135 is unsafe in any way, shape or form, no Part 135 operations should be conducted at all. But that isn’t the argument is it?
You mean like those ALPA & APA pilots who raised the flaps too soon after departure in February or the ones who taxied in front of the 737 at JFK?
New headline: “VFTW wrong to attack OMAAT”
Gary, Lucky is allowed to have a different opinion than you. His headline didn’t say “Gary is wrong.” You both agree on the safety issue, but you feel that exploiting a “loophole” (which your original article failed to clearly explain, i.e. that one company sells the tickets while another operates the flights) is OK, while Lucky (and ALPA) do not agree. I agree with you on ALPA – they are simply being protectionist. But the fact is that JSX IS exploiting a loophole. Lucky says he likes the JSX business model, but also states it operates the way it does only because of the loophole. The solution should be that FAA closes the loophole OR JSX (and its airline investors) lobby to change the law – make the loophole explicitly legal.
@OCTinPHL – I’m saying Lucky’s take is wrong, since he agrees that the rules he thinks JSX should be subjected to are bad rules.
Everyone agrees what they do is legal. It is not even a grey area! JSX *is* explicitly legal. There’s no pushing boundaries but are *squarely within the law*. ALPA just doesn’t like that the rules they pushed to limit entry into the pilot profession weren’t as comprehensive as they thought they were.
@Chris – to be clear, the pilots who taxied in front of a Delta 737 at JFK were represented by the Allied Pilots Association not ALPA, a different union
@Gary – what Lucky is saying, and with which I agree, is CHANGE the rules. Make JSX’s business model explicitly clear so that a loophole does not need to be exploited. I don’t disagree that the letter of the law is being followed. I’m probably one of the few lawyers who preaches that we should also follow the spirit of the law.
OMAAT is so far off base here it’s not even funny. Major misjudge. I agree completely with your take here Gary.
I’m happy JSX is utilizing the benefits of Part 135, and SkyWest should be able to also. The 1500 hour rule is silly as it’s based on the Colgan 3407, on which both pilots had more than 1500 hours.
Why do forced retirements make any sense? Aren’t pilots subject to an annual physical? I suppose you could up that a physical exam every six months over age 65. That doesn’t prevent unions from negotiating for the option or right to retire at a certain age, but why force it legislatively or administratively when most people are living longer and in good health.
The biggest risk to safety is the commuting culture which in fact led to the Colgan crash in Buffalo. Administrative rules should require pilots to prove that they have a residence near their base and if they commute they should be required to commute the day before. Not red-eye like the pilot from Washington state who commuted on a Fedex Freighter overnight, or the pilot from Florida who spent the night in a lit crew lounge.
Quick question for Gary, though–are there ANY unions you support? My memory (and a quick search on this blog of the word “union”) shows a couple of posts every month critical of unions (flight attendands, pilots, hotel workers, ramp employees, etc.) Is there something truly different about what’s happening in this situation, or is this just kind of your overall opinion of collective bargaining?
@Zach – if you review my writing you’d see me saying that if I were an American Airlines flight attendant, I wouldn’t vote to decertify a union! I don’t think Delta flight attendants would be better off with one, and I think the American Airlines one is *too weak* and ought to be stronger.
I believe that unions, like any other institution, contain both good and bad – across industries, time, and specific leaders. However I think it’s important to understand that what the data shows about the role unions played in the past, how they benefit their members, has changed. There used to be a union wage premium of up to 15%, that joining a union extracted better wages, and that overall the data no longer shows that premium. That isn’t true in every sector. Pilot unions are hugely beneficial for pilots, in large measure because of barriers to entry in becoming a pilot and the role a pilot plays – they have a lot of leverage.
That said, I don’t love it when well-compensated pilots play victim, relatively wealthy older white guys equating their struggle with desperate and downtrodden. I don’t think they deserve the sort of public sympathy that hotel housekeepers do! And I find myself often, though not always, in agreement with their cause and not sympathetic to hotel owners in those cases.
Whenever I write something critical of a union, people take that personally, and it inflames a lot of passion. My goal is to lay bare what’s going on, get behind the claims made by unions *just as I do management*. Surely no one here thinks I’m on the side of American Airlines or Delta or United management against their employees? I know with certainty that members of management at those airlines do not!
I’m planning DFW-MIA r/t in August for a business meeting. Will probably cancel my AA itinerary and rebook on JSX DAL-MIA. Less hassle. And cheaper than AA F.
How is JSX exploiting a loophole? It is not as if they figured out a way to legally fly widebodies filled with passengers with pilots meeting lower standards than the legacy carriers.
Our highways are filled with vehicles rated exactly one pound below CDL weight thresholds, exactly one inch shorter than CDL length thresholds, and/or exactly one less seat than CDL passenger thresholds.
What about bed and breakfasts that do meet the same building, fire, and life safety code requirements as larger hotels? Occupancy classification in codes is driven partially by number of people and number of units in a structure. Many buildings have rooms exactly at the maximum size where one instead of two separated means of egress are required. Many buildings are at exactly the maximum area and/or height before required to be constructed of a safer construction type (e.g. noncombustible vs combustible or fire-resistance rating).
Following the logic that JSX is exploiting a loophole implies that most Americans occupy buildings and drive or ride in vehicles, or share roads with vehicles that exploit loopholes daily. It is not going to be any less painful when you get hit by a truck that weighs 25,999 lbs instead of 26,000 lbs.
@Carl, airline pilots are subject to a medical review every 6 months, commercial pilots annually and private pilots every 2 years. No pass, no fly.
@JS, well said
@OCTinPHL, who gets to decide whose version of “the spirit of the law” means? Oh, lawyers & judges wasting everyone’s time charging $XXX per hour to argue – when they are the ones drafting the laws in the first place!
Hey! Lucky is “just asking questions!”
In other news of the obvious:
Water feels wet and pilots are buttholes…..
If you’d know the level of training you wouldn’t fly with them, and, the level of the pilots that get hired. Let’s leave it here.
Now you say Europe Europe Europe… 250 hours. Ok let’s talk – 250 hours gets you an interview. You become a **second** officer until you hit 1000 hours. They do NOT let you manipulate the plane. You sit as a dummy just to have a body in the seat.
Also, let’s talk about who hires at 250………… Wizz, Ryan, Vueling and EasyJet. Not BA, not LH, not AF, not IB. Why aren’t you staying correct facts?! Do you want your pilots that fly you and your family be fatigued and scared of calling fatigued because they might lose their job? Do me a solid and stay a credit card and frequent flyer blogger. That’s your expertise. Keep it there.
… I meant b&b’s are ‘not’ required to comply with as stringent code requirements as larger hotels.
Sorry, Gary, but Lucky is right here. The regulations were clearly written to limit scheduled flights to 9 seat or less aircraft. Using a multiple company structure to work around the regulations isn’t tailoring your operations to laws as written- it’s working around the law to avoid complying.
If the company was doing the same structure to avoid regulations on necessary maintenance (assuming the regulators were dumb enough to write it that way), you’d be one of the first to call for closing this loophole.
I get it that you are in favor of JSX’s business model, and I agree- so am I. But then we need to work to change the regulation, not find workarounds to avoid complying…
@JS – the loophole isn’t “flying 30 passenger planes from private airports”, which is the legal limit so akin to your 25,999 pound truck.
The loophole is having one company sell scheduled passenger service, and a second company to service, to avoid the 9 person limit on scheduled passenger service.
Now, is the limit of 9 people a crazy rule? Definitely! But then change the rule, don’t allow people to play shell games with companies to avoid it.
Another VFTW anti-union rant. So predictable. *yawn*
@Tom – if ALPA would stop doing outrageous things to rant about…
@ DFWSteve JSX truly is wonderful. I fly back and forth between CA and NYC frequently and I would kill for something like JSX for a route like that.
Unfortunately the plane size limits the distance, but I have seriously considered flying JSX with a connecting flight in Dallas. I just can’t justify the extra time it would add to the trip. With Clear and PreCheck I can show up to a commercial airport 15 minutes before boarding just like I can with JSX so it just wouldn’t save me any time there.
But for non-stops the whole experience makes it worth it over standard commercial (?) flights.
@George – I simply think the term ‘loophole’ in regards to transportation safety should be reserved for situations where the general public may unknowingly place themselves in extreme danger of injury or worse. Example: in most states, stretch limousines are not subject to many vehicle safety regulations because they do not meet the definition of a passenger car or a bus, even though they are a gigantic passenger car that holds as many passengers as a small bus. There have been numerous high-profile multiple-casualty crashes involving stretch limousines, yet that ‘loophole’ remains.