(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-04-09 07:27

With the intervention of China's Civil Aviation Administration, China Eastern Airlines (CEA) has finally admitted that the abnormal return of 21 flights early last week was not due to poor weather as it originally claimed.

The company's pledge to hold accountable its irresponsible pilots and branch leaders and compensate all passengers affected is a correct initial step.

However, as a deterrent to others in the industry, the aviation authorities should come up with harsher actions to discipline the company. After all, what was at stake was not only the convenience of more than 1,000 passengers who took those disrupted flights, but more importantly, the confidence of the public in the aviation industry.

From March 31 to April 1, 21 CEA flights returned to their departure points in Yunnan province without allowing the passengers to disembark. The company insisted that the incidents were mainly due to poor weather, ostensibly a legitimate excuse to exempt itself from compensating passengers for the inconvenience they suffered.

Nevertheless, it does not take an aviation expert to spot the flaw in such an explanation given the fact that other airlines flying the same route landed safely and on schedule during the same period.

It was only after the industry regulator had sent a team to investigate the incident over the weekend that the company admitted it was not due to the weather. Pilots turned back flights deliberately for reasons best known only to the company.

No matter what those reasons are, the pilots certainly should be held responsible for taking such extreme measures that put passengers' lives at unnecessary risk.

Yet, penalizing the pilots is not the ultimate solution to the problems that led to the incidents. Nor is it enough to portray the case as a serious warning to other airlines.

As the company acknowledged, its poor management is also to blame.

Sacking two senior officials of the Yunnan branch is a good start in putting the company's house in order. But self-criticism should not be confined only at the branch level.

The company should take the initiative to plug management loopholes. Or the industry regulator will be forced it to do so.

Last year, the company ranked first in on-time performance among the three domestic airline giants, and received the highest rating among all 16 domestic carriers in a survey by the industry. It must continue to maintain such high standards.

(China Daily 04/09/2008 page8)