Is Allegiant Dangerous

[Oswalda Shutte]

Inthis Thursday, May 9, 2013, file photo, two Allegiant Air jets taxi at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas. A scathing report by "60 Minutes" says Allegiant has a history of concerning problems with its planes. (AP Photo/David Becker, File)

A new report by "60 Minutes" says Allegiant Air may well be the "most dangerous" carrier in the country, with a concerning track record of aborted takeoffs, cabin pressure loss, emergency landings and other problems often obscured by its ultra-low fares.

The report notes Allegiant "has some of the lowest fares, the least frills, and the oldest fleet in the business." It highlights more than 100 serious mechanical incidents found in "service difficulty reports" filed by Allegiant with the Federal Aviation Administration between January 2016 and October 2017, including mid-air engine failures, smoke and fumes in the cabin, and flight control malfunctions.

In a statement responding to questions from "60 Minutes," Capt. Eric Gust, vice president of operations for Allegiant Air, said the airline is proud of its "strong safety record," and emphasized the airline's low cancellation rate, which "demonstrates our operational integrity and commitment to safety and reliability."

A separate statement sent by Allegiant Air to customers following the "60 Minutes" report calls the segment an "irresponsible, grossly misleading story," and says the report was instigated by a terminated employee who is suing the airline.

Nearly 173,000 passengers in New Orleans boarded or arrived on Allegiant flights in 2017, according to statistics tracked by Louis Armstrong International Airport. The airline served about 1.4 percent of all airline passengers who traveled through Armstrong Airport in 2017.

The "60 Minutes" report points out that Allegiant's problems appear to coincide with the FAA's decision to take a different approach to safety enforcement, focusing on compliance over enforcement. FAA officials told 60 Minutes the issues highlighted in the report had been addressed and fixed.

Allegiant Air is a small, ultra-low-cost carrier based in Las Vegas, that happens to be one of the country's most profitable airlines. But, according to federal aviation records and interviews with pilots, mechanics and industry experts, it may also be the most dangerous.

The airline flew 12 million passengers last year on its 99 planes to 120 destinations from California to Florida. But it has had persistent problems since at least the summer of 2015 when it experienced a rash of mid-air breakdowns, including five on a single day. It was not a fluke.

Public documents show an alarming number of aborted takeoffs, cabin pressure loss, emergency descents and unscheduled landings. Yet for the most part, Allegiant's difficulties have managed to stay under the radar of the flying public.

It's entirely possible that you have never heard of Allegiant or flown on one of its planes. But if you shop for the cheapest ticket, live near cities like Pittsburgh or Cincinnati that are underserved by major airlines or you rely on regional airports, then you probably recognize the company's colors and logo.

Allegiant has some of the lowest fares, the least frills and the oldest fleet in the business. Right now, nearly 30 percent of its planes are antiquated, gas-guzzling McDonnell-Douglas MD-80s, almost all of them purchased second-hand from foreign airlines. It also has more than its share of angry, traumatized passengers willing to share their experiences.

For the past seven months, we have been scrutinizing 'service difficulty reports' filed by Allegiant with the FAA. They are official, self-reported records of problems experienced by their aircraft. What we found raised some disturbing questions about the performance of their fleet. Between January 1st, 2016 and the end of last October, we found more than 100 serious mechanical incidents, including mid-air engine failures, smoke and fumes in the cabin, rapid descents, flight control malfunctions, hydraulic leaks and aborted takeoffs.

We shared the reports with John Goglia who has more than 40 years of experience in the aviation industry, including nine years as a presidential appointee to the National Transportation Safety Board. Now retired, Goglia remains a respected figure in the aviation industry and occasionally testifies as an expert witness on safety issues.

John Goglia: Very, very high for an airline of this size. I hate to make comparisons-- but we've seen that before in airlines that are no longer with us that had experienced a number of accidents and killed a bunch of people. I don't wanna repeat that. So I try to push on Allegiant to-- to-- clean up their operation.

But John Goglia and other aviation experts we talked to aren't so sure. They believe Allegiant's problems come from the confluence of its aggressive business model and a safety culture they find to be lagging. The business strategy which has produced 60 straight quarters of profits, occasionally with margins approaching 30 percent, requires the airline to keep costs down and "push the metal" -- keep the planes flying as often as possible. But Allegiant's aged fleet of MD-80s, which it is phasing out and is responsible for most of its problems, require a lot of maintenance and reliable parts are hard to come by.

John Goglia: Well, the first and most obvious piece is the lack of infrastructure. They don't have the number of mechanics. And we've seen some problems with the contractors that they've used. We're seeing problems that require-- feet on the ground, people looking at the airplanes when they're being worked on so that these problems are caught during maintenance and not caught by the f-- crew as-- as a surprise and emergency.

We found numerous planes with the same recurring issues and others returned to service before they were ready. Like Allegiant Flight 533 last July, which was delayed in Cincinnati on its flight to Las Vegas.

Mercedes Weller: He came on and he said, "The mechanics have been working on this right engine. We apologize for that. We'll get you up in the air as soon as possible." As we started taxiing, everything was going okay. And then it's, like, as soon as the wheels came up, the engine blew.

Mercedes Weller: The force of it was so hard that it-- it popped open the cockpit doors. And there was smoke in the cabin and fire coming out of that engine. And I just remember thinking that I would never see my daughter again.

But that was not the only problem Allegiant's small fleet encountered last July. There were nine other Allegiant planes that also had to make unscheduled landings during that month. Four of those planes had engine problems, two reported fumes in the cabin, four had instrument or flight control problems. And that's not all.

Among the most concerned are the people that have to fly the planes. Daniel Wells, a captain for Atlas Air, with 30 years experience, is president of Teamsters Union 1224 which represents pilots from Allegiant and nine other airlines. We wanted to know how unusual it was for a small airline with 99 planes to have 25 engine failures or malfunctions in less than two years.

Daniel Wells: Well-- (LAUGH) I think that says volumes about the company. I would love to put up some of the-- Allegiant pilots. But they can't. And they can't because they know that they would be terminated. At the very least, disciplined. And that's just for speaking up about concerns. So I have to speak on their behalf.

On June 8, 2015, this Allegiant MD-80 jet with 141 passengers aboard had just left St. Petersburg, Florida for Hagerstown, Maryland when a flight attendant informed the pilot that there was smoke in the cabin.

It would take another 22 seconds and prompting from ground control before that voice identified himself as 'Rescue Fire 2'. But, with the clock ticking and confusing radio chatter, Kinzer did what he had been trained to do: he deployed the emergency chutes and evacuated the aircraft, with eight people sustaining mostly minor injuries.

Daniel Wells: I haven't spoken to a single captain, both Allegiant and otherwise that knows the details, that didn't say, "He absolutely did the right thing. And if I was there, I woulda done exactly the same thing."

Loretta Alkalay has a lot of experience in things like this. She spent 30 years at the FAA prosecuting enforcement cases in the northeast region. She was particularly annoyed by Allegiant's letter of termination that blamed Kinzer for what it called an "evacuation that was entirely unwarranted" and for not "striving to preserve the company's assets".

Loretta Alkalay: Yeah, it's really-- it's really outrageous. And-- and that's where the FAA should have stepped in to look at the safety culture because the message to all the other Allegiant pilots is: don't ever have an emergency evacuation if you don't see flames in the cockpit. I mean, that's-- what other message could you get?

Captain Jason Kinzer filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against Allegiant, which is scheduled to be tried next month. As for the FAA, which is charged with enforcing airline safety in the U.S., it has not brought a single enforcement action against Allegiant in nearly three years. How can that be?

Allegiant Air is an ultra-low-cost carrier primarily known for its rock-bottom fares and its high profit margins. But what really sets it apart from the competition is that its planes have been nearly three and a half times more likely to have serious in-flight mechanical failures than other U.S. Airlines. That figure comes from a seven-month review we conducted of safety records on file with the Federal Aviation Administration. What's equally surprising to us is what some have called the FAA's passive approach to correcting Allegiant's difficulties.

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