July 2013
UAL MEC Central Air Safety Committee
Chairman’s Report
Respectfully submitted to the MEC by
Captain Bob Sisk
UAL MEC CASC Chairman
Summary:
As you all know, we have new agreements with the Company that allow us to
maintain a closer and more effective relationship with our UA Safety
counterparts. We are finding these relationships useful to both our pilots and the
safety culture here at United. For us, that’s a win. Unfortunately, however, we
are now finding our pilots faced with pilot pushing from UA Flight Operations at
levels we have never seen, we are seeing different company divisions attempting
to find “work-arounds” for our very strong control of safety data, and we are still
over a month behind in the FSAP program.
The work of integrating our programs with those of legacy-Continental is ongoing;
the complexity of the tasks and problems associated with cultural differences
between the legacy carriers are hampering these efforts, but the integration
process continues, nonetheless.
Crew rest facilities, addressed extensively in FAR 117, are a problem for us until
the turn-on date of that Regulation, 4 Jan 2014. While the company is working
with us on supplying adequate rest facilities, they are still flying 767 aircraft
internationally that are not providing that rest. Additionally, in some instances,
they are blatantly ignoring current crew rest FARs, our CBA, the upcoming FAR
117, and the recent grievance that we won on this issue.
Manning funds for our safety programs have been challenging, the Company is
not paying as much to fund these as we had anticipated during contract
negotiations. As a result, much of the funds for manning ALPA’s portion of the
safety programs are coming from ALPA.
The strain on our pilots is evident in the number of pilot errors being committed
on the line. Whether it’s the uncertainty of the SLI process, the increased
operation tempo, fatigue, or combinations of many of these and other hazards,
our pilots are occasionally making some fairly serious mistakes. Obviously, we
have suffered no major loss, so we need to keep this in perspective, but the
types of mistakes and responses to those mistakes by some of us indicate that
there is a lot going on in our cockpits beside flying jets.
A predictable increase in requests for Special Studies by the company and thirdparties
using the new provisions in the CBA has kept the SAC busy. Generally
these requests are submitted to address a particular problem with a particular
aircraft or component.
CASC WORK:
Investigations:
The number and tempo of FSIs on our side of the operation have remained
relatively constant. We have been surprised, however, at the decision to not
investigate certain mishaps that we think previously would have driven the
company to perform an FSI. It would be speculation on my part to say why this is
happening with any certainty, but the workload of the Flight Safety Investigators
is quite high and has always been taken into account when deciding whether a
mishap that does not result in a serious incident will be investigated. UA Safety
has hired and is or has trained new investigators to match the workload, and we
expect that that alone will help in increasing the throughput of the FSI program.
UAL MEC Central Air Safety Committee
Chairman’s Report
Respectfully submitted to the MEC by
Captain Bob Sisk
UAL MEC CASC Chairman
Summary:
As you all know, we have new agreements with the Company that allow us to
maintain a closer and more effective relationship with our UA Safety
counterparts. We are finding these relationships useful to both our pilots and the
safety culture here at United. For us, that’s a win. Unfortunately, however, we
are now finding our pilots faced with pilot pushing from UA Flight Operations at
levels we have never seen, we are seeing different company divisions attempting
to find “work-arounds” for our very strong control of safety data, and we are still
over a month behind in the FSAP program.
The work of integrating our programs with those of legacy-Continental is ongoing;
the complexity of the tasks and problems associated with cultural differences
between the legacy carriers are hampering these efforts, but the integration
process continues, nonetheless.
Crew rest facilities, addressed extensively in FAR 117, are a problem for us until
the turn-on date of that Regulation, 4 Jan 2014. While the company is working
with us on supplying adequate rest facilities, they are still flying 767 aircraft
internationally that are not providing that rest. Additionally, in some instances,
they are blatantly ignoring current crew rest FARs, our CBA, the upcoming FAR
117, and the recent grievance that we won on this issue.
Manning funds for our safety programs have been challenging, the Company is
not paying as much to fund these as we had anticipated during contract
negotiations. As a result, much of the funds for manning ALPA’s portion of the
safety programs are coming from ALPA.
The strain on our pilots is evident in the number of pilot errors being committed
on the line. Whether it’s the uncertainty of the SLI process, the increased
operation tempo, fatigue, or combinations of many of these and other hazards,
our pilots are occasionally making some fairly serious mistakes. Obviously, we
have suffered no major loss, so we need to keep this in perspective, but the
types of mistakes and responses to those mistakes by some of us indicate that
there is a lot going on in our cockpits beside flying jets.
A predictable increase in requests for Special Studies by the company and thirdparties
using the new provisions in the CBA has kept the SAC busy. Generally
these requests are submitted to address a particular problem with a particular
aircraft or component.
CASC WORK:
Investigations:
The number and tempo of FSIs on our side of the operation have remained
relatively constant. We have been surprised, however, at the decision to not
investigate certain mishaps that we think previously would have driven the
company to perform an FSI. It would be speculation on my part to say why this is
happening with any certainty, but the workload of the Flight Safety Investigators
is quite high and has always been taken into account when deciding whether a
mishap that does not result in a serious incident will be investigated. UA Safety
has hired and is or has trained new investigators to match the workload, and we
expect that that alone will help in increasing the throughput of the FSI program.
