TV Alert! AllEgiant Airlines

mscard88

mscard88

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Mark
CBS "60 Minutes" doing a piece on AllEgiant and their maintenance problems tonight.

:D
 
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AllEgiant. (sorry, I couldn't resist).
If I hadn't cut the cord, I'd watch it. Maybe I can find it on YouTube or streaming somewhere.
 
Ooh this is good. They're slamming the airline.
 
“Good” in that maybe they’ll fix stuff? They just built a big terminal here in CLT so I hope they do well.
 
I wouldn't fly on them. The CEO was one of the Valu Jet founders. Fly at your own risk.

The way the airline is managed is so similar to what was going on at Valu Jet. Seen a few incidents at ATL.
 
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Flown with them several times and haven’t had any issues, but it definitely isn’t my first choice. They’ve added A320’s to their fleet which I hope will help their punctuality & Mx delay issues.
 
They are starting to fly out of Sarasota. Be interesting to see how often their stuck at the gate.
 
What did you think of the FAA John Duncan's responses to the questions from Steve Kroft?
 
SkyDog58 said:
What did you think of the FAA John Duncan's responses to the questions from Steve Kroft?
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Typical nonanswer bureaucrat. The whole segment reminded me of the early days of the regionals, and I was there. This is how unions get voted in.
 
LOL.
I always tell people, i wont fly them. I dont think they're ready to fall from the sky.... but you have a high probability of being stuck somewhere 'wesome' for many hours waiting for parts or repair, and very few back-up planes to come rescue you.
 
Speaking of being stuck somewhere..I can recall at least 2 or 3 times within the past year or two that AAY has diverted here for some kind of mechanical issue. One just a couple of weeks ago. They ended up sending another aircraft up here from SFB to rescue the passengers and get them on their way to the dest.

They serve CHA a few days a week, but both of these instances were flights scheduled to go elsewhere.
 
I've flown with them a couple of times... First time I used them, when we landed, I had my eyes closed (sort of dozing a bit)...The Landing was so hard, I thought we had crashed! I've stopped flying with them when they changed their flight schedule after I had bought tickets, causing me to lose a day and a half at my destination... Also because I'd heard too many bad stories even before the 60 Minutes segment...Didn't want to wind up alligator shyt in the glades...
 
SkyDog58 said:
What did you think of the FAA John Duncan's responses to the questions from Steve Kroft?
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Like an arrogant politician trying to avoid responsibility. Can’t use compliance philosophy in avoiding giving punishment. This airline has too many red flags for that.
 
They haven’t killed anyone like Critter, so no one is going to do anything.
 
No fan of the airline, but an expectation that network news will report accurately. . .they won't let facts sway them in the face of higher truths; or selling more cars/beer/deodorant.. .
 
Hmmm, Flying old aircraft and have more failures than anyone else, what a shock.
 
I watched the program and it's a bummer they only showed one side of the story... definitely missing/skewing a lot of the facts. Are they perfect? No. Are they safe? I'd say so and I worked on the MX side for a couple of years. I'll definitely significantly discount anything that 60 Minutes airs from here on out...
 
rt4388 said:
I watched the program and it's a bummer they only showed one side of the story... definitely missing/skewing a lot of the facts. Are they perfect? No. Are they safe? I'd say so and I worked on the MX side for a couple of years. I'll definitely significantly discount anything that 60 Minutes airs from here on out...
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I figured that out decades ago. Sensationalism at it's finest. Assassination of character or destruction of reputation is a small price for them to pay for ratings. Always has been.
 
rt4388 said:
I watched the program and it's a bummer they only showed one side of the story... definitely missing/skewing a lot of the facts. Are they perfect? No. Are they safe? I'd say so and I worked on the MX side for a couple of years. I'll definitely significantly discount anything that 60 Minutes airs from here on out...
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60 minutes, 20/20, 48 Hours and other shows of that ilk tend to be hatchet journalism at it's best. Although I'm no fan of Allegient, I'm sure 60 minutes made their conclusions before the first interview.
 
JOhnH said:
I figured that out decades ago. Sensationalism at it's finest. Assassination of character or destruction of reputation is a small price for them to pay for ratings. Always has been.
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Yea, just a bummer. Understanding the pilot and business side, it's apparent that the show is definitely appealing to the "they're gonna crash soon" scare. The interview with the paxs who were on board the engine failure flight out of CVG bugged me the most. I mean, engines fail. It's a part of flying... doesn't mean the plane is going to fall out of the sky. But 60 Minutes definitely made it seem that way.
 
Well, at least they're better than United.
 
jbarrass said:
Well, at least they're better than United.
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Not so, United just kills your animals or drags you down the isle, they don’t even need an equipment failure. They also perform that service free of charge!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
bnt83 said:
Hmmm, Flying old aircraft and have more failures than anyone else, what a shock.
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Actually their fleet is growing younger with their Airbus additions. The MD80’s will be faded away very soon.
 
My only beef with the allegiant back and forth is with the hypocrisy of the pilots. They were peddling that crap and doubling up on that very rhetoric when the TA wasn't forthcoming, and the second that contract was ratified it was blowjobs and unicorns coming from that group in defense of their mx practices. No thanks.

From my POV, getting their devil's money doesn't change the dynamics for pax one iota. Sure, the majority of the complaints came from the Maddog operation, but a culture of being willing to fly people around on those paid-off clap traps for profit's sake will invariably leak into the operation of the Airbii at large. That uncommanded pitch-up, high speed abort in Vegas should scare the bejesus out of everyone paying attention. They got lucky, period dot. Statistically that should have been a fatal for the airline and we would have been talking about ValuJet parallels in 2015.

But hey, you pays your moneys, you takes your chances. You think there's a single standard of safety in American part 121? Knock yourself out, it's still a free(ish) Country I suppose.
 
hindsight2020 said:
That uncommanded pitch-up, high speed abort in Vegas should scare the bejesus out of everyone paying attention. They got lucky, period dot. Statistically that should have been a fatal for the airline and we would have been talking about ValuJet parallels in 2015.
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I agree that that event should be pretty scary. That's the one that sticks out to me the most too. But, I believe (can't remember exactly what the public report says) it was AAR who made the mistakes... not G4. And AAR does work for just about every airline in the US. Just my thoughts...
 
Sen Bill Nelson (D, Fl) has asked DOT IG to investigate how the FAA oversees aviation safety saying Allegiant has not been subject to proper scrutiny or penalty. Ah, the wonders of election years!
 
It was a hit piece, infused with the kind of journalistic integrity that only 60 Minutes can deploy.

Which is to say... very little.
 
SCCutler said:
It was a hit piece, infused with the kind of journalistic integrity that only 60 Minutes can deploy.

Which is to say... very little.
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Easy to say, but I've seen this before when I was based in ATL with ValuJet, and the CEO of Allegiant was also one of the ValuJet founders. Besides the Everglades crash, ValuJet had a number of incidents at ATL and elsewhere, even a DC9 burning up I think out on the runway in ATL. Sometimes a show like 60 Minutes can do good by calling attention to a serious problem. I remember a TV crew (ABC I think) following some of our crews around when our regional airline scheduled the majority of our layovers for minimum rest, 8 hours from duty out to duty in. Within that eight hours transportation time was included, so if the hotel was 20 minutes away, there's 40 minutes gone from that 8 hours. It called attention to the problem, the FAA allowing it so the company took advantage of it.
 
ktup-flyer said:
@kayoh190 thoughts?
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I left right around the time the union came onto the property, so everything I know about the contract battle came second hand from friends that are (or were) still there. So take it for what it's worth. :)

The big thing to understand about Allegiant is that most of the pilot group wasn't interested in working for a typical airline. They valued being home every night, the company's ability to make money even during downswings in the economy, the camaraderie of working for a smaller carrier, and so on. Everyone knew they worked for an ULCC, and that meant the company commonly did only the minimum required by 121, low bidding contractors were used whenever possible, and that everyone needed to be on their A game to avoid a violation (or worse). A common dark humor quip was that Allegiant pilots flew the line to get themselves ready for recurrent in the sim. Heh! Anyway, there wasn't a feeling that the company was dangerous, but rather an acceptance that flying an old airplane like the -80 for an ULCC wasn't ever going to be the same as flying the -80 for American or Delta.

I mention all this to illustrate that Allegiant's pilots as a whole weren't a "give us a legacy contract or we'll burn this place to the ground" type of group. They just wanted to secure the kind of contract that would make Allegiant somewhere they could hang their hat for the rest of their careers. Now I wasn't there, but based on what I knew of the culture when I left, as well as talking to a number of my buddies still on property during the contract battle - the union leadership's decision to toss the MX grenade wasn't a popular decision and generated a lot of unease amongst the rank and file.

So now, long after the TA was ratified, the pigeons are coming home to roost. I do think the 60 Minutes piece is a typical example of the media deciding on a narrative first, and then digging for pieces of a story to support that narrative. Not to give Allegiant a pass - as their management most certainly *does* strive to play the airline game juuuust inside the lower boundary of 121 - but you could take any airline, and with the right digging and the right sources, create a similar piece.

Ultimately I don't think this is going to hurt Allegiant in the long term. People have short memories. I still have two buddies flying there, and it sounds like there has been improvement in the operation in the last couple of years, but whether that's from an actual shift in the company's attitude or simply a product of the modernization of their fleet, I'm not sure. One thing about modern airplanes is that it's harder to BS anyone about how you fly, since the damned thing keeps track of everything. I'd imagine it's the same on the MX side as well. Of course Maury Gallagher's world revolves around the shareholder, and Allegiant is gonna be Allegiant. But less than a year ago they took delivery of some brand new 320s - something I NEVER thought I'd see. So maybe the culture is slowly changing - we'll see.
 
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