A new audit from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General found significant gaps in the Federal Aviation Administration’s oversight of United Airlines’ maintenance practices. According to the report, released Wednesday, oversight has been affected by limited inspection resources, staffing shortages and barriers to accessing safety data.
The report examined how the agency addressed maintenance noncompliances and violations at the carrier and identified multiple areas where oversight activities were constrained. United operates one of the world’s largest commercial fleets and carries more than 160 million passengers annually.
The audit said the FAA’s Certificate Management Office overseeing United lacked sufficient inspectors and, in some cases, even conducted inspections virtually when resources or travel were unavailable.
“FAA’s under-resourced inspections, low Certificate Management Office (CMO) inspector staffing levels, and ineffective workforce planning are insufficient to oversee safety risks,” the report found.
The report also said the office had vacancies in 33% of its positions and has experienced high turnover among inspectors.
According to the office, the FAA had not fully implemented prior recommendations tied to safety management system oversight, nor had it ensured inspectors could consistently access air carrier safety data. It noted that some inspectors were unaware of their ability to request and review such records and that access limitations affected oversight activities.
The Office of Inspector General issued six recommendations, including developing clearer guidance on when inspections should be postponed, reevaluating staffing models and workload distribution, creating plans to address staffing shortages and retirements, and expanding inspector training and outreach on access to safety management system data.
So the problem is ACTUALLY with the FAA and not really United. But the FAKE MEDIA likes to put United’s name in big bold letters when in reality it’s the FAAs lack of sufficient manpower that’s the real story. Nice ! Likely it is this way at EVERY OTHER major airline as well but you don’t want to report about that. That’s some fair and balanced journalism - NOT.
While b787 makes a good point, perhaps a current revision to your FOM is in order. All the hi time PMI’s from the FAA are almost gone. So, what do you get? new hires that really have either NO or VERY limited experience in maintenance, especially base or MRO setups. I have had discussions with senior PMI’s, and they have indicated that its almost impossible to get the 'new hires" out of the office and on to the floors in a maintenance department. You tell me how qualified they are on any companies proprietary software. Anyone outside the industry has no idea what its like do IO (input output) data on some of these systems. You also have to know how to read between the lines. something today’s newby’s may never master. This is not just a 121/135 issue. Its top down. When a 25yr old FAA check airman is giving you , a 35yr old 787 driver a line check, what level of safety would we rate this. So the same problem exists in flight ops. This problem of oversight has been manifesting itself over the last decade, accelerating post covid. So the problems discussed are BOTH the inspected airline ( whichever is audited) AND FAA infrastructure.