Department of Transportation to Audit FAA Practices Investigating Allegiant and American
Photo Credit: A Department of Transportation inspector general's audit will look at how the FAA has handled safety investigations at Allegiant Air and American Airlines. Pictured is an Allegiant Air Airbus A320. Airbus / P. Pigeyre
Skift Take
It's hard to know what to make of this. There could be something there, or the inspector general's office could just be changing the scope of its audit of the FAA to placate several members of Congress.
The office of the U.S. Department of Transportation's inspector general will audit how the Federal Aviation Administration has investigated allegations of "improper maintenance practices" at Allegiant Air and American Airlines in response to requests from several members of Congress, it said Wednesday in a memo.
This is not a new audit, but rather a change in focus from a previous one requested by Democrats in Congress announced in June, 2017. At the time, the inspector general's office said it wanted to judge the effectiveness of the FAA's oversight on all U.S. airlines, asking whether recent mergers or cost-cutting had affected how safety regulators interact with carriers.
But the focus will now narro
