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August 18, 2010 -
The National Transportation Safety Board will hold a two-day symposium
on the role that airline code-sharing arrangements play in aviation
safety. The event, chaired by NTSB Chairman Deborah A.P. Hersman, will
be held on October 26-27, 2010, in Code-sharing is a marketing arrangement in which one airline places its designator code on a flight operated by another airline, then sells and issues tickets for that flight. |
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Recent NTSB investigations of accident flights operated under code-sharing arrangements include the February 2009 accident near Buffalo, New York, in which a Colgan Air flight was operated as Continental Connection; a 2007 accident in Traverse City, Michigan, in which a Pinnacle Airlines flight was operated as Northwest Airlink; a 2007 accident in Cleveland, Ohio, in which a Shuttle America flight was operated as Delta Connection; and a 2006 accident in Lexington, Kentucky, in which a Comair flight was operated as Delta Connection.
Today, most
airlines participate in some type of code- sharing arrangement, either
with domestic or international partners. More than half of passenger
enplanements in the "In the past twenty years, code-sharing arrangements have so proliferated within commercial aviation that today the vast majority of airlines are involved in what are often complex business and operational arrangements." said NTSB Chairman Deborah A.P. Hersman. "We have investigated many accidents in which passengers bought tickets on a major carrier and flew all or part of their trip on a different carrier - one that may have been operating to different safety standards than the carrier that issued the ticket. While all carriers are required to meet minimum standards, a clearer picture and deeper understanding of the best safety practices for code-sharing arrangements are the goals of this symposium." |