Good morning ladies and gentlemen, this is Steve Janasov with the ABX Air INFOline for July 29, 2010. I hope everyone is doing well.

Safety and Compliance
From the ATSG Security Office...a note of appreciation and congratulations to the ABX and AMES employees who are part of the DHL operation at CVG. As you may know, for several days over the past couple of weeks, TSA Inspectors have been on-site at the DHL ramp in CVG conducting an audit of the security and compliance efforts there. During a briefing with corporate security, the TSA Inspectors were very complimentary of ABX and AMES employees at CVG. One Inspector characterized our aircraft and ramp security at CVG as "quite impressive" and advised that they observed NO security violations involving ABX aircraft during their inspection. The same Inspector advised that they also gave high marks for the challenging efforts they observed at the CVG ramp. Thanks to all of our CVG employees whose dedication and attention to detail has earned our companies such noteworthy praise from one of our industry's primary regulatory agencies. You are awesome. Please keep up the excellent work!

The Corporate Transition 
Yesterday, July 28th, Joe Hete - CEO of ATSG and John Graber - President of ABX Air; held a meeting with the ABX, AEFS, and AMES management community to answer questions concerning the recent reorganization that resulted in the creation of Airborne Global Solutions under the ATSG structure. From all of us at ABX; our sincere best wishes to everyone at AEFS and the Postal Hubs in your new role as a part of the Airborne Global Solutions team. For us remaining at ABX, this change provides us with the opportunity to stand alone as a pure airline business and focus 100% of our energy and efforts on our foremost goal - the performance and growth of our airline.

It has been a real pleasure having Gary Stover, Jamie Rudy and all the folks of postal and AEFS as part of the ABX family. We wish you all well going forward.

That is all the news I have for this week. Please email me your questions or comments, or if you need any help at all, drop me a note. My email address is john.graber@abxair.com. 

The ABX Airline 
As a U.S. certificated airline, we are regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration. This body issues rules having the force of law to regulate our nation's entire aviation industry, of which we are a part. But how effective are they at this task? I recently attended a conference where this question was asked. How effective is the airline industry regulated compared to others, such as; the banking industry, the mining industry, the petroleum drilling and refining industry, or the medical industry? Consider that question in light of recent history of each of those other industries and this one example. Last year, 198,000 people in the U.S. entered hospitals and died as the result of either contracting an infection while there, or due to the malpractice of caregivers during their stay. In the aviation industry, this statistic would equate to two full jumbo jets crashing, with no survivors, every single day for a full year. How would the public perceive the FAA's effectiveness as a regulator if that scenario came to fruition? Needless to say, the results of the survey presented at the conference indicated the highest levels of public trust went to the FAA when compared to the other industry regulators, but again why?
The FAA leadership correlates their success in regulation of the airline industry to one program attribute that separates it from its sister government industry regulators; Voluntary Self-Disclosure Programs. These programs virtually allow those being regulated to voluntarily disclose safety problems and compliance shortcomings in either a non-punitive or lesser punitive environment. The FAA does this in order to gain the information required to adequately determine the root cause of compliance and safety shortfalls so that comprehensive remedies can be implemented before major problems or disasters occur.
Here are ABX; we fully participate with the FAA in these Voluntary Self-Disclosure Programs. Both our flight crews and mechanics participate in web-based Aviation Safety Action Program's where company, labor, and FAA representatives review de-identified self-disclosures in an effort to promote overall organizational and industry safety. ABX also participates in the Voluntary Disclosure Reporting Program. When we find something wrong, we disclose the issue and develop comprehensive fixes to the problem in partnership with the FAA. Finally, ABX is in the final stages of developing a FOQA (Flight Operations Quality Assurance) Program. In this program crew de-identified data from the aircraft flight data recorders is analyzed for trends that can lead to safety improvements within the company, the aircraft manufacturer, and the entire industry in the form of training and procedure changes. Here at ABX, we've extended the same courtesy the FAA affords us in the regulated portion of our business to our entire workforce. Any work related safety or compliance issue can be reported anonymously using the ABX web-page or other reporting systems. We want to know where problems exist so we can work together to correct them to create a safer work environment for everyone.
I'm proud to work for a company and an industry that values this type of a safety management system and I hope you are as well. Everyone at ABX is an integral part of the safety team and I thank you for your continued focus on safety.
This is all the news I have for this week. Please feel free to email me any questions you have concerning ABX Safety Programs. My email address is steve.janasov@abxair.com .