Pilot-Fatigue Rule May Stall After U.S. House Lawmakers Attach Conditions
By John Hughes - Apr 1, 2011 12:09 PM ET Fri Apr 01 16:09:56 GMT 2011
A U.S. rule to require more rest for airline pilots may stall under a proposal adopted by the House, according to cockpit crews, lawmakers and other plan opponents.
The 215-209 vote today in Washington requires that the
Federal Aviation Administration, before issuing any rules, consider alternatives, differing industry segments and adverse effects on the economy.
The proposal will ensure rules “are not overly burdensome” and “based on the best available science,” Representative Bill Shuster, the Pennsylvania Republican who wrote the plan, said yesterday on the House floor.
Today’s vote adds the Shuster provision to the $59.7 billion proposal to fund the FAA for four years. The House may approve the overall legislation today and send it to a conference committee, where it would be reconciled with an FAA funding plan passed by the Senate in February.
The Shuster plan will add “red tape” and “seriously undermine” FAA safety efforts, including a proposed rule that would give airline pilots nine hours of
rest between shifts, a 13 percent increase from current schedules, said Representative Jerry Costello, an Illinois Democrat.
Stalling the pilot-fatigue rule would be a victory for U.S. airlines, which through their trade group, the Washington-based
Air Transport Association, last year called the FAA plan “onerous.” The group said the proposal would cost the industry $19.6 billion over a decade.
Colgan Crash
President
Barack Obama’s advisers have said they would recommend a veto of the FAA bill over another provision in the Republican-controlled House’s version that would make it more difficult for labor unions to organize airline workers.
The FAA last year proposed changes in pilot-rest rules in response to an airplane crash in 2009 near Buffalo,
New York, that left no survivors. The plan requires that pilots get at least 30 consecutive work-free hours a week, a 25 percent increase from existing rules.
Relatives of people who died in the crash of the
Pinnacle Airlines Corp. (PNCL) Colgan plane, flown on behalf of Continental Airlines, said earlier this week that the Shuster amendment seeks to “cripple” FAA efforts to enact the fatigue rule.
“It is absolutely mind-boggling” that carriers would push for legislation such as Shuster’s plan, Susan Bourque of East Aurora, New York, who lost her sister in the crash that killed 50, said in a statement March 30.
The plan may gut the idea of “one level” of safety through the industry by treating cargo carriers differently from those that carry passengers, said the Coalition of Airline Pilots Associations, which represents pilots at carriers including
AMR Corp. (AMR)’s
American Airlines,
Southwest Airlines Co. (LUV) and
US Airways Group Inc. (LCC)
“Congress should ensure that regulators put safety before the economic interests of the
airline industry,” the pilot association said in a March 30 statement.
To contact the reporter on this story: John Hughes in
Washington at
jhughes5@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Bernard Kohn at
bkohn2@bloomberg.net