Is economic decline causing planes to drop?
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Earlier this year you may recall that I wrote about how air travel is becoming safer. Encouraged by the heroic actions of US Airways pilot, Chesley B. Sullenberger, in New York, I studied air crash statistics since 2002 and found a steady annual decline in incidents and fatalities. If I was to know what the rest of the year would bring, I would’ve kept my mouth shut. Since my previous report we have seen the Colgan Air crash in Buffalo claiming the lives of 49 people, the Turkish Airlines crash at Schipol Airport kill nine, the FedEx crash at Narita kill its two pilots, and then the twin horrors of the Air France and Yemenia Airways disaster claimed a total of 380 lives. Most recently Iran has suffered a series of crashes, with 168 people dying in a Caspian Airlines crash and a further 16 perishing on when an Aria Airlines slid off the runway at Mashhad. In total 629 people have died in air crashes in 2009. This is more than the total number of fatalities in the whole of last year (433), and 2007 (592). And we still have five months of the year still to go. So what has gone wrong this year? The exact cause of many of this year’s disasters remains unknown, but we do know that airlines across the globe are under significant pressure to cut costs. Could this belt-tightening be leading to a slackening of safety measures? Airlines will insist not, and it is unlikely that carriers would knowingly risk their passengers’ safety to save cash. But doubts about some of the carriers remain. Yemenia Airways has been criticised in France for what its Transport Ministry called “irregularities” in its aircraft. Iranian carriers meanwhile, often operate fleets of aging Russian-made aircraft, as they are unable to trade directly with Boeing and Airbus due to US sanctions (make of that what you will).The continuing decline in passenger revenues will put further strain on airlines’ budgets, and the area of fleet maintenance can only suffer as a result. Many airlines will also be delaying the delivery of new planes, resulting in older planes being run for longer. One hopes that there is no link between the airlines’ cost-cutting measures and this year’s sharp rise in air traffic accidents. But following recent incidents, pressure is now on the aviation industry to restore passenger confidence and prove that this year’s events are just a tragic coincidence.
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