Pilot Complaints Highlight Hazards of Regional Airlines

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Many regional pilots say that affording a place to live is often harder than flying. Low pay coupled with airlines that regularly open and close bases have made the commuting of hundreds of miles to work the norm, says pilot Mark Segaloff, who lives in Austin, Texas.

His flight assignments are based out of Newark, New Jersey.

'Didn't Really Know'

"I didn't really know how difficult it would be," he says. His initial pilot salary was $22,000 a year, so he worked a side job as a waiter at a TGI Friday's restaurant in Albany, New York.

Segaloff, 26, is now a captain and head of the Colgan pilots union. To cope with the commute, many pilots stay in crash pads near airports.

The Web site www.crashpads.com has a database with 350 listings, says Steve Botkin, president of Flight Crew Services, who started the site in 1997. Crash pads provide better sleeping conditions than crew lounges, says Botkin, whose site has had 10,000 members.

Mark Yakopovich, a flight attendant for Republic Airways Holdings Inc. (RJET), says he decided to run his own crash pad near LaGuardia Airport in the borough of Queens, New York, eight years ago after staying at unlocked apartments that sometimes didn't even have beds.

Yakopovich, 56, charges $200 a month for one of 22 beds in his five-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment in East Elmhurst, New York. The crash pad is two apartments on the first and third floors of a brick building that's a five-minute walk to a US Airways building.

Arrows to Mattresses

The bottom apartment's living room functions as the common area for both spaces, with a futon, a television and a desk. The kitchen is upstairs in the third-floor apartment. The bedposts have stickers on them with pilots' and flight attendants' names, along with arrows pointing to their mattresses.

"You need a place that doesn't smell like sewage," he says. "I feel very strongly about having a quiet place, a secure place and your own bed to get the rest. It's all about saving lives."

The commuting and living conditions, the pilot fatigue, the minimal training and the use of faulty aircraft are posing a danger for millions of Americans.

"Here's what the customers do: They assume the FAA, the federal government and the airlines are doing their job on safety," says Senator Begich.

No Action

The FAA and federal government have failed to ensure that regional airlines are as safe as their major partners, says Begich, whose father died in a 1972 charter plane crash.

In the 10 months since the fatal crash in upstate New York, the U.S. Senate held six hearings on aviation safety and two more on the reauthorization of the FAA. So far, it has taken no action.

The FAA said in mid-2009 that it would introduce new regulations regarding pilot flight hours by Dec. 31. Now, it's saying the rules will change in 2010.

Former Gulfstream pilot Edwards says government delays in enforcing and improving safety rules put the public at risk.

"The only thing that I think would really change the situation, as much as I hate to say this, is more accidents," he says.

Until the FAA steps up, passengers traveling on commuter flights will be left wondering whether buying a cheaper ticket will continue to mean bargaining away their safety.

To contact the reporter on this story: Caroline Salas in New York at csalas1@bloomberg.net.