Never flown to Hong Kong. Sailed in a grey war canoe there tho.Cheers, SLuggy

Is that what you call them!Never heard that term before.Daniel

I agree! Look how many times the FAA has sited Southwest Airlines (Which outsourced it's maintenance to El Salvador) on serious maintenance issues. When it comes to safety and maintenance, I do think regulation is needed.

Indeed. That should be obvious, at least to those not blinded by free-market extremism. In a libertarian free-for-all, companies that skimp on maintenance, pilot training and all the systems that keep flying safe will undercut their more responsible rivals and soon drive them out of business. It might be argued that airlines operating in these circumstances that have the best safety record would pull the most paying passengers, but that's all relative. The safest airline might be one that 'only' has two or three downed planes a year.Could I bring up Alaska Airlines Flight 261? It went down in the Pacific in 2000 due (it turned out) to a failed jackscrew working the horizontal stabiliser. The jackscrew hadn't been adequately lubricated and had eventually torn out the threads from the nut it passed through. The periods between lube jobs & checking had been extended during the late 80s & early 90s (with FAA approval it should be noted).The point of bringing that up is to ask, if that sort of thing can happen as a result of corner-cutting in an attempt to lower running costs with the approval of regulators, how bad could things get without regulation?

Edited February 9, 201214 yr by Raindance