Jaunted

Signaling a potentially tougher safety enforcement policy, federal aviation regulators proposed $9.2 million in civil penalties against US Airways and United Airlines for various maintenance lapses affecting more than 1,800 flights stretching back to early 2008... Wednesday's announcement... also may be a prelude to seeking potentially larger fines or penalties in pending enforcement cases targeting two other carriers that recently have been more prominently in the agency's crosshairs: American Airlines and Southwest Airlines.

On one hand, very well and good. There's a reason we have regulators and it's more or less to keep track of this stuff. If airlines are endangering passengers then federal officials need to come down on them as fast and as hard as possible.

On the other hand, now seems like a particularly strange time to be launching an expanded long-term campaign against airlines. Especially since the government's justifications include "heightened congressional concerns" about safety.

Putting aside details and nuances, 2009 opened as the first time since the dawn of the jet age that US carriers went two years without a single passenger death. That would seem like an excellent reason to give cash-strapped airlines the benefit of the doubt, even if the flawless 2008-2009 period wasn't a full year's worth of flights that the FAA is levying fines over - which it is.

This has all the feel of government bureaucrats trying to justify their existence, and slapping huge fines on already-vulnerable US airlines in the process. If there was a concentrated campaign afoot to needlessly re-regulate airlines and add another layer of complexity to the travel industry, this whole thing would be really suspicious.

[Photo: Jonathan Thorne / Wiki Commons]

Related Stories:
· FAA Proposes $9.2 Million in Fines for United, US Airways [WSJ]
· FAA Coverage [Jaunted]
· United Coverage [Jaunted]