RegionsAir grounds all its planes

RegionsAir Inc. grounded all of its aircraft Saturday after the Federal Aviation Administration requested a change to the carrier's pilot training policy.

The sudden move affects nine cities in the Midwest, including Cape Girardeau, and three in West Virginia.

RegionsAir CEO Doug Cald-well said the FAA is reviewing the carrier's records and he believes will clear a large number of its more than 60 pilots today. He said RegionsAir may begin limited service today but that he did not know when flights will resume at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport.

"As an air carrier the FAA is sacred and if you have any concern of the airworthiness of a pilot, then that is of the greatest concern. The rules can be onerous -- in this case, it's extremely onerous and the inconvenience to the traveling public is severe -- but at the end of the day that trumps everything else," he said.

The groundings arose from a section of the RegionsAir manual outlining the training of its line check airmen. They are the certified inspectors who fly alongside a pilot during certification and evaluate the pilot's competence. One section of the manual, which is more than 10 years old, does not appear to meet FAA guidelines, Caldwell said.

Caldwell said the discrepancy is small and technical but would result in fines if not corrected.

He believes more than half of RegionsAir pilots will not need to undergo retraining. Those pilots either have additional training superseding the policy or were inspected by a line check airman found to be qualified. Pilots typically spend about 10 hours in the air with line check airmen during the certification process, Caldwell said.

The groundings are the latest in what the airline's leadership has termed "poor performance." The rate of flight cancellations at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport in 2006 was above 8 percent, more than double the historical average. The carrier attributed the cancellations to repeated mechanical problems, forcing it to take half its fleet out of service at different times during the year.

Area leaders greeted Saturday's news as more of the same.

"This is probably the culmination of what has been a very disappointing relationship," said Cape Girardeau Mayor Jay Knudtson.

However, Knudtson stopped short of saying the grounding would put RegionsAir out of the running to win an upcoming U.S. Department of Transportation contract to provide local air service.

RegionsAir's $1.15 million federal contract expires at the end of May. The Airport Advisory Board will submit a letter of recommendation during Monday's city council meeting. The letter will rank the four carriers that submitted bids for the contract. If approved by council, the letter will be sent to The Department of Transportation, which will make the decision on the carrier sometime this month.

Airport manager Bruce Loy said he is not aware of another incident at Cape Girardeau where a carrier was forced to ground its fleet. He said he was surprised by the FAA's action.

"Last night they threatened to shut them down at 4:30, but they let them go through the day. Typically, if they find you in violation, they allow a certain amount of time to fix it, you know, unless they find a 3-foot-hole in the runway," he said.

Nathan Vallier, RegionsAir director of sales and marketing, said the airline voluntarily grounded its fleet but did so under threat of fines.

"It's like getting a speeding ticket," he said. "But in this case we're speeding all the time because we're flying all the time, so it wouldn't have been one ticket. It would have been a number of tickets."

He declined to give a cost total of potential fines.

Both Vallier and Caldwell expressed disappointment they were not given more time by the FAA to fix the problem without grounding the fleet.

"It would have made life a lot easier," Caldwell said.

tgreaney@semissourian.com

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