dashdrvr wrote:I read all these comments before I finally got to watch the piece yesterday. From my limited knowledge of the internal workings of Allegiant I would say it was accurate reflection of Allegiant, FAA oversight of Allegiant as well as airline oversight in general. The facts are facts and I don't see much if any spin by 60 minutes. It is naive to dismiss this as a hit piece. The simple fact that Allegiant pressured the FAA to not release FOIA SDR'setc speaks volumes. Especially considering legacy carriers did release the same information. 60 minutes presented an accurate unbiased representation of events at Allegiant. It is the public's right to dismiss or not. Hopefully It won't be another "told you so"
Well, we will have to agree to disagree, then.
To me, it was a classic case of how to lie with statistics: select the comparison set, subject metric, and date range of the stats to give false context. (See this:
https://redirect.viglink.com/?format=go ... 20Appraoch )
As an economist, this is something with which I am very familiar. Hey, the facts are what they are, right? Or are they?
And it's all about characterization to achieve a result. Allegiant didn't pressure anyone. The FAA has to ask before releasing in response to a FOIA request (which seems pretty dumb given that the stuff is online). Allegiant said "No" initially. Why would they want to approve a data set designed to mislead? In any event, all this stuff is available online if you know where to look. It just sounds better for 60 Minutes to say it took seven months to get. The guys that did the study above found the exact same data set online in four minutes.
Go on APC and read what the actual Allegiant pilots say about all this. Here, I'll help: They say that not once have they ever been pressured, ever, not to write something up. They write up in outstations as well at maintenance base, which is an important fact. With respect to the A320, they write up every single squawk, and are constantly reminded to do so, and have been for a couple of years. You are in trouble if you don't. So, they say that the bit about maintenance write ups is total BS. And the relationship between air returns and some general concept of "safety" is also silly and misleading.
To say that it's an "accurate unbiased representation of events at Allegiant" is, I think, a bridge too far.
And this is coming from someone who was highly-critical -- several years ago -- of what was going on in the Florida maintenance operation, which was plainly being misrepresented to upper management. All those people, including higher-ups, were fired and replaced.
In my view, it's a total hit piece. And one based on old data at that. What I can't figure out is who brought it to 60 Minutes and why.