Name

Course

Institution

Instructor

Date

Flying Cheap

There is a growing increase of people using planes. The advent of technology has made the world a global village, as a result, many people are moving between and among continents for business, diplomatic, leisure and finding homes. In order to manage all this many travels, more reliable, fast and efficient systems of travelling are the most sought. The airline industry is the sole assistant for this necessity.

People will always like to experience a more fast, comfortable and reliable transport means. Overall, air transport has been cited as the most secure means of travelling between and among continents on the globe. It has rare accidents and the travelling conditions are a lot comfortable compare to other means of travelling between continents.

While travelling, everybody always wants to reach his destination fast without being bogged down by the airline. However, perhaps a question that flight passengers fail to ask is themselves is whether the value they expect to get from flight companies is mutually exclusive from safety. This argument is perhaps what set up investigators from Frontline to search and find out. In this movie, the investigators are motivated by the air crash that happened in February 2009, where flight 3407 was involved.

Following this crash, we have witnessed many changes in the industry; with passengers have a wide range of choices of flights with varying prices. The liberation of the industry has brought so many changes that are being enjoyed by passengers. Despite all this, flight companies are very boastful that the industry is the sole monopoly of safety with regards to travelling within and without.

This documentary aims at explaining the concept that while at times flight passengers have the impression that they have trained, experienced and smart pilots, the concept can sometimes be wrong. The reality is that sometimes, the passengers do have a cockpit filled with captains that have been deprived of sleep for a long time, some are purely undertrained and most hearting is that they are underpaid.

This film tries to search and explain some of the mysteries around an accident that happened in February 2009 involving the famous continental flight 3407. On this occasion, the crashing commuter flight claimed the lives of a massive 50 people with one of them victims having been on the ground.

As brought out in this film, the major cause of the accident is said to have been errors of the pilot and the first officer in charge. This film looks a bit horrifying. Some of the staff that has worked for Colgan Company are explaining their versions of experience while working at Colgan, something that makes this film quite thrilling. After this incident, the airline industry took a different turn. The industry developed a new pattern of working. One of the changes is that like Colgan, other small airline operating companies have had to rebrand. Lacking the means to train pilots to run large aeroplanes but still enjoy the competitive advantage, the airlines can use such names as continental on their brands. This is usually done with the aim of luring customer to come and enjoy the comfort and luxury of travelling in large planes while keeping their flight expenses low

There has still been some airline accidents since 2002 according to the documentary. Most of them if not all, have the accidents have been a result of mistakes by pilots. The N.T.S.B found that out of the six accidents that had occurred since then, four of them wear caused be pilot errors. As a matter of fact one pilot who had been working for Colgan earlier explains how his particular day in flying was, he says, “a lot of short routes, a lot of takeoffs, a lot of landings, and going in and out of bad weather, being down low” (Genzlinger 6).

When pilots work for long hours without ample rest, it is tiring and thus fatigue can be a major cause of lapses that can results into fatal errors. Pilots working for Colgan have had horrendous experiences. It is therefore no hard to say that most of the accidents that have involved Colgan were human errors caused by administrative issues in the company. Genzlinger says, “a lot of short routes, a lot of takeoffs, a lot of landings, and going in and out of bad weather, being down low” (7)

Underpayment is cited as one of the main challenges that were experienced by crew members in this documentary. In flight 3407, the first officer had actually to fly in from Seattle through Memphis in order to begin his working day. The concept of having low payments affected many of the crew workers; they were mostly forced to commute long distances to work. Renting a hotel was not an option because the remuneration was not enough. Alternatively, they were made to find some little rest in apartments that partner pilots would rent. The main shortcoming here was that they were very congested and this would not guarantee them ample sleep or rest to manage the next flight schedule.

This film may seem frightening for passengers that fly regularly. This is because there are no traces of hope that the situation will be corrected soonest. You may not be notified of any changes by flight companies. What may be hard to tell is that the next time you are boarding a plane, you may not actually tell if the crew members are undertrained, are having conducive working conditions, or they are a just a bunch of tired pilots struggling to make their living in the air.

Frontline’s investigators revealed that major airlines hard a share of the blame in all this accidents that happened after 2009. The airlines had targeted to remain relevant in the airline field by reducing their flight costs. This is what made them to allow small companies like Colgan to use some of their brand names. Passengers would therefore opt to use the flights due to reduced costs, and the repercussion was; increaser flights due to an upward rise in the number of flight customers in this small planes.

The increased flights were actually the main cause of fatigue to pilots. Perhaps the need to minimize on costs makes the companies to underpay their crew members.

It is good to appreciate that this documentary was a turn around to the flight industry. The president had to sign some legislations; “President Obama signed The Airline Safety and Federal Aviation Administration Extension Act of 2010 into law,” (Rentz 2) which have brought about major improvements in the industry to boost passenger and crew safety in the aviation field. Qualifications for pilots have been streamlined and the particular training accompanying such has been improved as well.

There still more changes being proposed into this industry and in future we hope to enjoy comfortable flying experiences at reduced costs. The industry is also going to attract lucrative pays for pilots and crew members. Accidents are things that can be avoided, except for natural impediments, human errors can be rectified. Thanks to legislations and the professionalism with which the matters are being handled.

Works cited

Genzlinger Neil. “Up in the Air, With Frayed Safety Nets.” 2010. Web. 10 February 2014. < http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/arts/television/09cheap.html?_r=0>

Rentz Catherine. “ HYPERLINK “http://investigativereportingworkshop.org/blogs/shop-notes/posts/2011/nov/29/pbs-will-re-air-flying-cheap-tonight/” PBS will re-air ‘Flying Cheap’ tonight.” 2011. Web. 10 February 2014 < http://investigativereportingworkshop.org/blogs/shop-notes/posts/2011/nov/29/pbs-will-re-air-flying-cheap-tonight/ >

Washington Denzel. “Flying Cheap.” 2012. Web Feb 10, 2014 < http://video.pbs.org/video/1412744270/>