One serious question about safety of LCCs

[A390]

Dear Horsepower,

I have read the French article with interest. It makes clear that these statistics are about worldwide charter operations, thus including Colombia, Venezuala, all africa... . I would like to point out that flights operated by reliable carriers such as TUI, TC, TNT are not to be compared to an occasional charter flight flown by an obscure 3th world carrier. What the general public in Belgium understands under "charter flight" is certainly a different story. The Belgian "Charter" operators are all highly professional . What I highly recommend the average Belgian tourist is to ask what carrier will fly his holiday flight before actually booking and insist his flight is to be operated by the above mentionned Belgian holiday carriers; then he can be shure about a safety level at least equal to renowned scheduled carriers. Unfortunately, many people will still accept to fly with everybody when the price is a few Euro's less, thinking "it will not happen to my single flight".

[HorsePower]

Hi A390,

I do not deny that the average european charter airline can be considered as reliable. On a side note, the parlementary report quoted in fact the Swiss BAAA/ACRO (Bureau d'Archives des Accidents Aéronautiques/Aircraft Crashes Record Office).

I warmly recommend you to visit their statistics page.

Also this press release is interresting.

Seuls 14 accidents ont été enregistrés en Europe contre 24 en Amérique du Sud, 8 en Amérique centrale,
33 en Amérique du Nord, 18 en Afrique, 20 en Asie et 3 en Océanie.

Parmi les accidents entraînant la mort de plus de 10 personnes, seuls deux ont été enregistrés en Europe :
le B737 d'Helios près d'Athènes et l'ATR72 de Tuninter près de Palerme.

Seuls 13 accidents ont mis en cause des compagnies aériennes enregistrées en Europe
pour un total de 131 morts, dont 121 morts dans la seule catastrophe de la compagnie Helios.

Tous les autres accidents enregistrés ont mis en cause des compagnies aériennes extra européennes,
ce qui tend à confirmer que le niveau de la sécurité aérienne en Europe demeure très élevé.

Is considered as a plane crash all events in which the aircraft has suffered such damage that it is not in a position to be used anymore and that it is removed from service. The criterion according to which there are victims or not are not taken into consideration.

Only are registered accidents which implicate aircrafts capable of transporting at least 6 passengers, besides the crew. Are not counted helicopters, balloons, hot air balloons, airships, gliders, fighters, and all other aircraft which do not correspond to the criterions mentioned above

Regards

Seb.

[waldova]

Lately I heard that most of the crashes are not due to mechanical failure but rather of pilot error. Here in Europe you can be shure that most carriers, if not all of them, are quite safe to fly.

Currently in Spain pilots from a company like Iberia, Air Nostrum, Spanair where saying that flying on low cost and charter airlines, like Vueling, Easyjet, Ryanair, Transavia, Futura, Iberworld is not as safe as flying with their airlines because they think these airlines can just make these low fares by reducing the cost of maintanence. Directly they got replies from a few of these companys replying that this is not the case. They say they have the same standards for maintenance. Even the mentioned that in Spain after every check the plane has to be approved by an government official. This official will not be more favourable for the LCC. In contrary, LCC are monitored more closely then other airlines.
Also they mentioned that the only reason the LCC can afford these low prices, is first of all that in pilots do not perform night stops. This first reason reduces the cost of an airline enourmously as you know that pilots sleeping in hotels mostly sleep in more expensive hotels. This cost is assumed to be huge for regular airlines. Also they mentioned, in the case of Vueling, that they safe money because all of their planes return to the same base during the night. This meaning that all of the maintenance can be performed in one hub and more engineering departments in outside bases are not necessary. This also reduces the cost for an airline. It is really expensive for an airline to receive a check by a third company in an outside base. Also they pay higher fares for airlines parking on outside bases during night stops then at their home base where these airlines have more favourable rates due to contracts they have with these airports. Only these few reason can safe tons of money to airlines and can reduce the ticket price a lot.
Also for most of the LCC the first tickets are really cheap but the last tickets are sold at really high prices that compensate the cheaper tickets.

In my opinion LCC are not worse then regular airlines. Even more, a LCC can not afford the publicity of a crash. A crash could mean bankcrupcy. So they will do everything in their power for not encoutering such a disaster. Also maybe august has been a bad month for aviation. But three out of these crashes where due to bad weather conditions. THis had nothing to do with a mechanical failure. Also if you read the reports about the crashes most of them happen in Africa or South America. So I truly think aviation is in Europe is on of the safest way of transport.

[Advisor]

I think this statement

Lately I heard that most of the crashes are not due to mechanical failure but rather of pilot error. Here in Europe you can be shure that most carriers, if not all of them, are quite safe to fly.

becomes sacrosant to countries where aviation growth is on the rise.

I am sure that there shall be stringent norms both for maintenance and yes, personell flying these crafts to ensure safety and security in the air.

[HorsePower]

For those who like statistics:

Number of accidents* for 1 Million T/O:
Africa: 13.3
Middle-east: 3.1
Latina America + Caraïbes: 2.4
Asia + CIS (exept China): 1.7
Europe: 0.7
China: 0.5
USA + Canada: 0.4
*Aircraft completely destroyed

Also, Cameroon lauched huge inpections wave:
Cameroun: grande opération d'inspection des avions

Regards

Seb.