The Next Crash: How Short-Term Profit Seeking Trumps Airline Safety

This troubling critique of the U.S. airline industry deserves a close look. Fraher, a former commercial pilot and U.S. Naval Aviator, presents a seasoned analysis of today's eroding safety standards and their implications for future airline disasters. Though Fraher, now an organizational consultant, writes in the language of business school case studies and training manuals, her well-supported argument is indisputable: the post%E2%80%939/11 state of the industry is perilous. According to Fraher, one reason for industry disarray is the "apparent rarity of aviation deaths" that has left airlines complacent and regulators lackadaisical as the industry drifts toward systemic safety failures. Fraher cites the 1978 deregulation of airlines as a turning point: "a horrible mistake" that fundamentally altered their status from being "public utilities" to opaque corporations that reward CEOs with huge pay packages while demonizing and demoralizing pilots as the source of high labor costs. Though Fraher's argument is not entirely unique, one hopes that her book will have an effect on the corporate practices that are sending the industry toward self-inflicted disaster. (May)