Question about maintenance

[Mister MP]

Hello folks!
First of all, I am sorry if I'm making mistakes, English is not my mother tongue. I am however very happy to understand it, because the most interesting informations you can get about fear of flying is in english!
I hope this question has not been raised before. I am flying with Aer Lingus in a month. And as you may know they are currently having financial problems.
My question to you is this: how safe is it to fly with airlines that have financial problems? I suppose they are not cutting on maintenance, which would be dangerous for them. But then, here and there one reads articles about airlines making new deals in maintenance that allows them to save money. As for example the one that follows under this message. How are airlines able to save money on new maintenance deals, and still be safe?
Here is the article:

DUBLIN, April 29 (Reuters) - Irish carrier Aer Lingus (AERL.I (http://www.takingflight.us/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=AERL.I)) said on Tuesday it had signed new maintenance contracts that will help achieve more than 20 million euros ($31 million) in savings in the first year and more as its fleet expands.
The new contracts for the base maintenance of Airbus A320 and A330 aircraft are for 10 years initially and are part of a larger plan to overhaul its maintenance arrangements, the former Irish state carrier said.
"The conclusion of these contract negotiations is an important step towards achieving substantial savings in our maintenance costs, and we anticipate that contracts with the other selected suppliers can be concluded in the near future," Chief Executive Dermot Mannion said in a statement. (Reporting by Andras Gergely (http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=andrasgergely&), editing by Will Waterman)

I hope this question will be of interest to some of you. I pretty much know that flying is safe, and I could come to terms with it, although I'm still freaking out sometimes just thinking about flying. But I also know that flying is safe because they have strict rules. And my biggest worry would be to be involved in an accident that could have been avoided.

Thanks for your answers, and good luck! From the posts I've read I see that this is a very nice community, and I'm glad to be able to share my fears with you. Good luck to all of you :cool:

[MathFox]

Hi and :welcome2:

You should know that maintenance at airlines is highly regulated; airline mechanics have to be certified, there is a complete administration of when parts were inspected or swapped... and when airlines outsource their maintenance their contract workshop has to comply to the same regulations. The national aviation authorities that oversee commercial aviation can (and will) inspect and audit airlines and the companies they outsource critical tasks to.
Aer Lingus would not have signed the contract if the maintenance contractor was not certified, so you should expect a similar (very good) level of maintenance as with every other airline.

[Barb-SAN]

I'll add my welcome to that of MathFox, :wave:and agree with his post.
I think it's interesting how one's "bias" (i.e. if one has fears about flying) can affect one's interpretation of "the news".

All the article really says is that they have new contracts for maintenance of their planes, which will save them money.

One might wonder exactly HOW...and the article didn't explain that. Maybe Aer Lingus got a better deal by giving the maintenance facility a commitment of 10 years, rather than negotiating every year (if that's what their old contract was...article doesn't say). Having a long term commitment might allow that maintenance facility to negotiate better prices on parts with their suppliers, and make their own operations more efficient. They might be more willing to invest in improvements to their facility, knowing that they will have Aer Lingus' business for the next ten years.

In the current economic climate, it's to be expected that businesses will be looking for ways to cut costs and make their operations more efficient so that they can stay in business. I find it reassuring to remember that from a business (and public relations) standpoint, it is VERY EXPENSIVE to "lose" an aircraft. So it really is in the company's self-interest to keep their planes well maintained.

[caroline]

Hi

Nothing to add on safety issues but just wanted to say your English is very good indeed!:)

Caroline.

[Aurora]

Hi!

I know about a pilot in that airline, I can try send him a message and ask about what he thinks. Hopefully I'll get an answer before your flight. Other than that I have a good impression of that airline, and he's a serious guy so he wouldn't fly anything unsafe :)

[Mister MP]

Hi to all of you!

Thank you for your precious help, it's really reassuring to hear (or rather read) all these good news.
Barb-San, I guess you're right in saying that our reading is somehow biased when we've got fears and other worries. And as you say, the thing that was lacking here was the details about how this would allow Aer Lingus to save money. Many people would probably not be interested in this, but as a fearful flyer I've got something in my brain that says "watch out". Then I start looking all over the internet and it usually doesn't get better. Fortunately I found this great forum!
I have to tell that I was recovering quite well from my fear of flying. My first commercial flight took me to Norway 4 or 5 years ago, and in order to survive this psychologically, my neighbour offered me a flight in a small Cessna with a friend of his who is a pilot. We had a marvellous weather and flying over the Alps in these conditions was obviously great. Then I started flying to go to England and other places (although always short-haul), and things were getting quite well. Then came Air France, and I think that this has had bad effects on many fearful fliers, because of the mysteriousness of the crash. I was quite freaking out at the several flights I have planned for this year (if I want to see my girlfriend this year it's the only way to do it, so yes love is stronger than my fear and that's a good thing;)), but now I'm feeling a little reassured again. I'm trying to work on the way I'm thinking. And instead of saying that since Aer Lingus hasn't had a crash since the seventies, then this is going to happen quite soon, I'm trying to set my mind on something like since they haven't had a fatal accident for 40 years it's a pretty good sign. Aurora, that's a really nice offer, and this would be, I think, really reassuring to have an aer lingus pilot's opinion. But don't worry if you don't manage!
Thanks so much to all of you for your contributions! I'm going to do something very dangerous indeed now: take my bike and go downtown :rolleyes:.

Melvin

[Mister MP]

Hi, it's me again :)
I wanted to share something with you, which may be comforting for some of you. While searching the internet, I found a couple of articles or reviews written years ago, where the journalists were speculating that airlines were also cutting costs on safety. "Experts" have been interviewed, and they were forecasting a dark future for the airline industry in terms of casualties. Yet, interestingly, these speculations never came true. Clicking on this link http://www.greenleft.org.au/2001/450/26012 you will end up on a review written 10 years ago. If these facts were true, surely there would have been more fatalities in the last 10 years. This article from 1983 http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20086160,00.html also higlights worrying aspects of the industry. And once again, from today's perspective, things have really rather improved than worsened.
What kind of conclusions can we draw from these two articles? Pure fear-mongering in order to sell? Or has the airline industry reacted against this in improving their maintenance budget?
Can we thus deduce that the articles we are reading nowadays may be as misleading as the ones I've just mentioned?
I just thought this was a reassuring example of how journalists get it wrong sometimes. Although I must admit that I keep asking myself if the airlines were just lucky and really did cut on maintenance. but that's another story!

[Barb-SAN]

That's an interesting idea, Mister MP, of looking up old articles to see if "dire predictions" came true. I think "fear-mongering" sells, and there tends to be a negative bias in the news. Yet publicizing "problems" may also lead to pressure on the airlines to solve them (if they are in fact legitimate complaints).

You also need to consider the source. Is the information written for the general public, or for "the trade" (i.e. experts in that field, and peer-reviewed)? Have you considered analyzing that article from 1983 sentence by sentence to see how the writer is trying to manipulate and provoke an emotional response from the reader? That headline is sure to grab your attention. It's interesting that pilot fatigue was a publicized issue almost 30 years ago (and continues to be an issue now).

From the 1983 article: "In 1963 Northwest lost a Boeing 720-B in a thunderstorm after taking off from Miami. The airplane went down in the Everglades. It was a horrible accident. So the company hired a dozen meteorologists, and several times each day they transmit data about areas of instability. Northwest has a plotting board for this information in each of its airplanes and a strict rule: Thou shalt not penetrate turbulence. Northwest doesn't have a perfect reputation as an on-time airline. But the people who understand why don't complain."
Although NWA has now merged with Delta, a few years ago when I flew on NWA and met the pilots, they told me that NWA had the best turbulence detection/prediction in the industry, and that they sold their information to other airlines. :thumbsup:

There are a number of free aviation publications you can subscribe to, e.g. http://www.avweb.com/ ("The world's premier independent aviation news resource"). They send you a daily email with aviation news articles. It can be a worthwhile exercise to compare the information, language, and matter of fact "tone" in their articles with some of the more sensationalized writing in non-aviation media.

[Aurora]

What kind of conclusions can we draw from these two articles? Pure fear-mongering in order to sell? Or has the airline industry reacted against this in improving their maintenance budget?
Can we thus deduce that the articles we are reading nowadays may be as misleading as the ones I've just mentioned?



It's a tough theme, but I think it's more "sensational fear-mongering super headlines-based" than actual facts in most articles. It's a big issue for me, actually, the development the media has today. I study climate change through satelite analysis (geophysics) - and for me it's always a though ride when the media goes out with another one of these "the earth is f***ed in 12 years" headlines. I have to explain to my closest why it's a complete lie. It's never what the media tells, the climate system is too complex to be understood by someone who doesn't have a background in both meteorology, statistics as well as physics, chemistry and geology. Some people expect a Hollywood movie - downfall of the earth because of climate change. And where have they gotten this view? MEDIA.

And just like that, I have the impression that my friends in airliners feel the same way about news about airliners/airplanes and other related themes. I look back at my own knowledge, one year ago I thought a Boeing 737 was a Boeing 737 - I didn't know that size differed. I didn't remotely understand what the pilots did up there, how an airport works - nor how anything really worked in the airline industry. Today I have friends that range from service to pilots thru baggage handling and up to the tower. A steep curve of learning, but what an insight I have gotten! And how on earth can one expect every single journalist to gain that same knowledge? It's a world of difference, and I understand why much of aviation related articles carry many faults. It's impossible for them to gain the whole picture only for a single article (unless they work for someone specialised within the field, perhaps?).

So to conclude, journalists often write about things they don't know - truth be told - **** about. I don't read our country's biggest newspapers any more, cause they only create headlines that sell. Not headlines that are true. And in many ways that's one of our (us fearful flyers) worst enemy. We might not feel the fear immediately, but the more stupid headlines they write the more insecurity builds up in (y)our brain. "Emergency landings" are one of the most mis-used words in all aviation articles. They rarely happen. The Hudson river was an emergency landing. If you get a bird in your engine, loss of cabin pressure or similar - the pilots do a controlled landing. It's things that doesn't create an emergency, it's things the airplane producers have thought of and it's all procedure. Listen to it, "controlled landing". How much better doesn't it sound. But the media doesn't listen on that ear - "EMERGENCY" is a much better word. It sells, it crawls right into your brain and settles there. It makes you look twice.

God this is getting very long, I am so sorry.

Just as a closer, I'd like to say that YES money has made some unwanted developments in the aviation world. Less money for service doesn't necessarily sound good, but the demands for service put out by the FAA or the European equivalence which I don't remember the name for atm ( :blush: ) doesn't change. Less money might mean that they had 3-5 employees that can be fired because their work can be covered with a change of shifts. Cuts in salaries, cuts in renting of area and such... You can't cut the quality of service, but you can cut on employee related matters. And that of course isn't a good thing either, but we can't get past the fact that money controls. Especially in service-related businesses, of which airliners are.

[Mister MP]

This is getting very interesting!
First of all, thanks for your replies, they are really great.
I've been to the website you suggested and am definitely going to have a look at this "other" kind of news, comparing the kind of language they are using. That's a very useful exercice. What I have noted with the 80ies article is how the questions were orientated. They hardly gave the interviewee (hope that's spelt correctly) some room to develop on other aspects than safety-related questions. And the fact that this was apparently published in a "people" magazine doesn't give it much credit ;). Imagining how journalism works, I can "understand" why this kind of articles exists. I've got more mixed feelings about people writing entire books on this topic (that's the first link I gave you I think). Why would anyone spend months deconstructing the facts that flying is safe?
Aurora, you mentioned the climate change issue. Having read certain serious articles, I can only agree with you about how the media make it seem apocalyptical ;). I was thinking of another topic, such as the recent outbreak of the H1N1 virus. There may be other aspects involved, but once again the media managed to scare people (including me of course) for something that was finally not that dangerous (and the odds to die in a plane crash are even slimmer than the odds to die of flue!). And of course, it's not even a real problem that they are mentioning the event, like a plane crash. That's their primary role, informing. The worst thing is the following weeks, they keep publishing pictures, making follow-ups and speculations of all sorts. It's already hard enough for us fearful flyers to aknowledge the fact that a plane fell down, but being exposed weekly to these stories doesn't help. The link works again with the H1N1 story: everyday they published precise numbers of people who got it, the odds of developping it according to where you lived and so on. Then of course you keep thinking of it, and your mind never stops reminding you that there is a "threat" although you wish to forget. then suddenly a sour throat makes you think you have flue, although it's nothing else than a sour throat. I remember when this all started, I was studying in a place in which I had no access to news. Then only have I understood the impact the media had on my fears! I fell much better during this period. I'm digressing as well, sorry for that. But you launched an interesting discussion and I couldn't help adding on that :).
In these last years I've started to get interested in how planes work. I've read many things, I've also used flight simulator. I know it may sound crazy, but following the basic courses that are included in this game helped me understand how a plane can actually stay in the air. I'm really not worried about these technical issues anymore, and am no longer thinking that there's magic at work when a plane flies. My biggest worry really is this maintenance thing, because I know that's the service that keeps the industry safe, and I have built my confidence on that. Only recently have I wondered where airlines were cutting in order to save money, and I have developped a big anxiety about this, and found it hard to trust the airline industry again (I've read the anxiety.com help course about that specific issue). And trusting the airline industry is really the thing that could help me, I just don't know how to do it since we know that money rules everything today. Aurore, since you seem to be acquainted with the industry (or anyone else), can you reassure me about this? Are the checks really thorouhgly made? I'm not afraid if there are 4 crew members on board instead on 5, but I do mind if as a result of cuts maintenance is neglected. God I feel panicky just mentioning it :cry:. I'm really sorry about this, I must be such a pain :blush:. Do you know a good website, or book that would help me trusting the industry again? The lines that made my worries become bigger are the following ones, taken from the first link in my previous post:


It is the tune sung by airlines the world over to persuade us that no effort or expense is spared on safety. It is also one of the more barefaced corporate lies, as British writer and broadcaster Andrew Weir shows in his gripping book on how safety is compromised by the aviation industry's pursuit of profitability through cost-cutting. Safety improvements are only made when their cost is less than the litigation costs of human lives lost. Only after sufficient passengers and flight crew have been killed in fiery crashes do the government regulators enforce new safety measures. As one US regulatory official put it, “We regulate by counting tombstones”.

If you can reassure me that what this guy is saying is downright wrong, then I think I may be almost worryless on my next flight. The only funny thing is the use of the word "gripping". It's apparently serious issues, but he presents it as a page-turner...
I would really like to apologize again, I am a bit stubborn I know, but this issue really ruins my days and nights. And knowing that my girlfriend also has to fly in a couple of weeks for us to meet make my worries double: for my flight and for hers. And that's no fun. I really appreciate your help. I'm of course going to write a trip report once my flight is done.

Melvin

[AndyR]

What you are looking for is an absolute. I think you have all the info and courage that you need to fly but you want to hear that nothing is going to happen. You will never get that answer. Wait, don't freak out. I was (am sometimes still) like you. I want guarantees. Not to get too wordy or philosophical but I think that modern, western society gives us a false sense of security and permanence. We have 30 year mortgages, life insurance, and a plan for retirement. Bottom line is, no one knows anything and nothing is for sure except for the present that most of us FoFers spend worrying about the future.

So I guess my point is to live everyday to it's fullest and understand that life has risks. I don't think you need more information, I think that you need to accept the minute risk that is modern aviation. I read somewhere in my internet travels where a pilot said that "boarding a modern aircraft in a western country is one of the safest things that a person can do is his / her daily routine". I think about that alot. I'll be thinking about that Friday morning when I board my flight from FLL to LAX.

Good Luck
Andy

[Mister MP]

Hi AndyR
Thank you for your time, I appreciate it.
Yes you're right, I am probably waiting for someone to tell me that nothing is going to happen :rolleyes:. I am as you say a person who is constantly looking for guarantees and stuff. I know that it's not always possible, and I am glad to take the risk of living my life and make the most out of it! I may be a bit of a perfectionist with the philosophy that there's always room for improvement, but I know that this is something that my brain has yet to accept ;). Anyway I'm going to try to stop worrying about these things and just keep thinking about the fabulous holidays that are waiting for me after the flight!
Your quotation helped me nonetheless, and I am going to think about that on my next flight! I wish you a nice flight!

[AndyR]

I hope I didn't come across harsh. That is just my situation and that's what helped me. This site and the people here also should be credited with getting my to fly more comfortably. That's what it's all about. First. It's a choice. You and only you decide to fly. So you might as well try to enjoy it. I look at all the pics of pilots just lounging about in the cockpit while I'm in the back white-knuckling it. It doesn't make sense.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/flyforfun/4332094727/

So read all these posts here. Check out all the safety info on your plane and airline, make you decision to go and go for it. I still feel a little AA from time to time, but I made the decision to go and that's that. Last year I flew on Friday, February 13 at 10:00 in the morning. I woke up in the middle of the night before my flight and saw the Colgan crash. Freaked me out, but I went anyway. Make your mind up and expect some fear and discomfort but know that you will be safe in the end. You are in the hands of professionals that do that all day long, every day. Hmmm, I just got back from the dentist and it sounds like I was describing them.;-)

Anyway, it's your choice.

[Aurora]

The trick is just to find your personal way into truly believing what AndyR is writing here. I often read people saying the exact same words, but words mean so little when it's my own brain that needs re-wiring. That's why the "close encounter with the pilots" changed so much for me - it was more than words and a picture that I couldn't relate to through a screen. I was sitting right there with them, eating cake and laughing about angry ATC-controllers that had a bad day at work.

Hope you find your way into truly believing in flying. To finally be able to sit back in your seat, relaxing every muscle and succumbing your safety in the hands of the pilots and the plane :)

[Mister MP]

Thanks so much for your tips, that helps!
No no don't worry, you didn't come accross harsh at all. With your precious help, and the other topics on this forum I'm going to tackle this FOF for good. I've come to the point where I book flights although I know that I'm going to be nervous (already 3 return flights for the next 5 months). Years ago I didn't even bother to book.
I will keep you up to date with how it's going of course. Thanks again.