- Instrument rated pilots
- special, expensive, instruments (radars, etc...)
- extra pair of skilled eyes (2 pilots)
- n + 1 engines / APU
- bigger planes that have less restrictions (more power which means you can bring more weight (more luggage), take off safely from higher altitude, manoeuvre in higher cross winds etc....)
I'm not familiar with air transport regulations, however, and some of these things may apply there.
14 CFR 61.133 (b)(1) states:[0]
A person who applies for a commercial pilot certificate
with an airplane category or powered-lift category rating
and does not hold an instrument rating in the same
category and class will be issued a commercial pilot
certificate that contains the limitation, “The
carriage of passengers for hire in (airplanes)
(powered-lifts) on cross-country flights in excess of
50 nautical miles or at night is prohibited.”
> I would seek companies that provide internal safeguards
My comment was narrowly referring to OP's lack of imagination in envisioning solutions to the "bad weather" criticism raised.
I'm not sure of a good way to handle this.
>Something automatic?
You seem to be assuming pilots and passengers have no regard for their own well-being. Just like the discretion shown by the OP in their story about canceling a flight, pilots have strong incentives to not fly if there is an increased likelihood they can't do so safely. I would see the "automatic" aspect likely being conditions which prohibit flying while even further discretion still being available to pilots.
These companies already have internal processes and mechanisms for handling these problems, which they impose in addition to FAA procedures.
The purpose of the FAA regulations and the ban in this case is to address pilots operating outside of this system. Essentially all commercial pilots employed on passenger flights have hundreds of hours of flight time, as an implicit condition of even getting such a job. The air taxi startup would have allowed pilots with almost no flight time (~40 hours) to take on passengers, which is an untenable safety hazard, given that new pilots are the cause of most accidents. It's not that these pilots have no regard for their own well-being; it's that they don't know enough to even know when it would be dangerous to fly.
1. You do realize these pilots can already fly passengers, correct?
2. This is the type of problem companies help solve all of the time. The minimum wage worker making my burger has no idea when meat is safe for consumption, but a whole series of internal precautions allows him to serve me a burger in a safe manner.
In your example of food safety, I believe it's your state department of public health that solved the problem, not the restaurant.
Obviously restaurants had an interest in food safety. You're being a little silly with your sarcasm. The question is whether food was as safe as we (citizens) wanted, and whether food safety would improve with government regulation. I suspect the answers were "No" and "Yes", respectively.
Take recent issues at Chipotle for example. Without government intervention, they easily might decide that it's cheaper to pay marketers and public relations experts than to improve the safety of their supply chain and service.
2) Flying an airplane is nothing like making a cheeseburger. I do not think it is a worthwhile goal to allow unskilled people to operate airplanes, especially if they are carrying passengers. Instead we should focus on making sure the operators of the planes are as capable as possible to first avoid dangerous situations and then deal with them when they are unavoidable. This is exactly what the FAA does.
If you screw up a cheeseburger maybe someone gets sick, if you screw up in an airplane people die. They aren't even remotely the same thing.