The 737 MAX Crisis Is Not Driving A Rift Between The FAA And EASA

The Boeing 737 MAX saga has raised a number of interesting questions. One surrounds the status of the Federal Aviation Agency (the FAA). Naysayers are suggesting that the FAA’s global standing is somehow degraded because of it. The FAA is a major world safety agency and has the right to be considered as such based on a huge body of work – none of which can be denied. Nonetheless, you are only as good as your next game, so there is never space for complacency. The concern is that by relying on a degree of ‘self-certification’ the agency has lost its mojo. This deserves analysis. But, it is complex, because to consider this you have to look at two intersecting axis. 

Regulation costs and regulators cost and the FAA, like every other branch of government, not only in the US, but around the (late neo-liberal) world has been squeezed and squeezed by austerity (in Europe) and ideological purity (in the US) to work with less. The only way to do that is to work with, not prescriptively against, the entities being regulated and thus we have moved, per force, to taking risk-based assessments (which include a lot of self-certification) rather than the historic prescriptive approach. That was inevitable. Add to that the huge growth in the market and aircraft and other systems that need to be certified. If we go back to the old prescriptive ways of doing things, the industry will slow down enormously, and not in a good way for airlines or customers.

 Secondly, the US aerospace industry is huge and thus there both must be an FAA and the FAA must be respected around the world. US exports depend on it, frankly. Boeing aircraft are about half of the commercial fleet in Europe for example, and there are smaller aircraft, engines, components and lots more beside that need a good FAA. If the FAA loses its reputation – which it is a long way from doing – then each of the FAA-equivalent entities around the world might feel the need to intervene. That they did intervene in the 737MAX was not an example of mistrust, but of the international comity that the large safety agencies around the world have worked very hard to build up for some years. Others felt empowered to act. Do not underestimate that.

Some are attempting to make mileage out of the fact that EASA is dispatching check pilots to join in the recertification flights. That is totally normal, it is a cost saving and duplication saving step, not a sign of ill-will. The FAA similarly sends staff to EASA when major stages are reached with Airbus aircraft.

If other authorities mistrust the FAA, they will then have to recertify all aircraft coming into their country and that will, probably inevitably in this trade-is-a-zero-sum-game administration mean that the FAA will have to certify Airbus’ on arrival in the US as well, and that way madness lies. It will be a total duplication – of time, of money and effort. In fact, having grounded the aircraft, authorities around the world are now looking at the FAA for direction and assistance on what to do next.

It is a good thing, not a bad one, that in the reauthorisation and release of the 737MAX the FAA is taking its time and that the FAA is being doubly sure that the aircraft is airworthy. That is what the rest of the world wants. The more work goes into the process, the more respect the FAA is earning.  


I am the managing director of Aviation Advocacy, an independent strategic government affairs and publishing company based in Switzerland. Aviation Advocacy’s clients i