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The article makes it sound like their planes are failing all the time, while the statistics say that Allegiant has 12 failures per 10000 flights. That sure is m

The article makes it sound like their planes are failing all the time, while the statistics say that Allegiant has 12 failures per 10000 flights. That sure is more than any other American airline, but it is not nearly as alarming as this article is describing it. Add to that that there was not a single fatality, and you can safely conclude that this article is alarmist FUD, nothing more.

ojii 10y ago
Also the repeated use of "break down in mid-flight" irritates me. To me it reads too much like "break up in mid-flight", as in, the plane breaks into small pieces.
fovc 10y ago
> there was not a single fatality This strikes me as the same reasoning that Feynman criticized in the Rogers report: > The argument that the same risk was flown before without failure is often accepted as an argument for the safety of accepting it again. Because of this, obvious weaknesses are accepted again and again, sometimes without a sufficiently serious attempt to remedy them, or to delay a flight because of their continued presence. [1] Just because no one died doesn't mean that the practice is safe. It might be safe, just like it could have been with the shuttle, if the engineers had designed the o-rings to withstand erosion. In that case you'd have tests and a spec for how much erosion is safe. Similarly, unless there's a guideline on acceptable rate of mechanical failures (which the article suggests there isn't) "there was not a single fatality" is not an acceptable proof of safety. [1]: http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/51-l/docs/rogers-commission/Appendix-F.txt http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/51-l/docs/roger...
tomohawk 10y ago
The airline industry functions as a whole. One bad actor can seriously hurt the whole industry. With such a poor safety record (2 - 3 times worse than any of the others), they are not credible. There is a danger that if this is not taken care of, others may follow suit and this will become the new normal. It is very strange that the FAA is so serious about on time statistics and enabling comparisons between airlines on that basis, but not on this basis.
- kapnobatairza 10y ago
  If we are looking at the airline industry as a whole, wouldn't the worst offender always be a certain number of standard deviations from the norm? I don't think we can make a judgment unless we can see a graph that represents failures per 10000 flights amongst the industry as a whole, and see if Allegiant falls within the bell curve that produces.
  - tomohawk 10y ago
    I don't think so. It's a dynamic system, not a static one. If one actor gets away with it and is more successful, then others will follow. The regulator's responsibility is to minimize safety critical differences between the carriers by getting the worst performers to improve or leave the market.

ojii 10y ago

Also the repeated use of "break down in mid-flight" irritates me. To me it reads too much like "break up in mid-flight", as in, the plane breaks into small pieces.

fovc 10y ago

> there was not a single fatality This strikes me as the same reasoning that Feynman criticized in the Rogers report: > The argument that the same risk was flown before without failure is often accepted as an argument for the safety of accepting it again. Because of this, obvious weaknesses are accepted again and again, sometimes without a sufficiently serious attempt to remedy them, or to delay a flight because of their continued presence. [1] Just because no one died doesn't mean that the practice is safe. It might be safe, just like it could have been with the shuttle, if the engineers had designed the o-rings to withstand erosion. In that case you'd have tests and a spec for how much erosion is safe. Similarly, unless there's a guideline on acceptable rate of mechanical failures (which the article suggests there isn't) "there was not a single fatality" is not an acceptable proof of safety. [1]: http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/51-l/docs/rogers-commission/Appendix-F.txt http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/51-l/docs/roger...

tomohawk 10y ago

The airline industry functions as a whole. One bad actor can seriously hurt the whole industry. With such a poor safety record (2 - 3 times worse than any of the others), they are not credible. There is a danger that if this is not taken care of, others may follow suit and this will become the new normal. It is very strange that the FAA is so serious about on time statistics and enabling comparisons between airlines on that basis, but not on this basis.

kapnobatairza 10y ago
If we are looking at the airline industry as a whole, wouldn't the worst offender always be a certain number of standard deviations from the norm? I don't think we can make a judgment unless we can see a graph that represents failures per 10000 flights amongst the industry as a whole, and see if Allegiant falls within the bell curve that produces.
- tomohawk 10y ago
  I don't think so. It's a dynamic system, not a static one. If one actor gets away with it and is more successful, then others will follow. The regulator's responsibility is to minimize safety critical differences between the carriers by getting the worst performers to improve or leave the market.