LaHood Encourages Cargo Airlines to Opt-in to New Flight & Duty Time Rules
WASHINGTON, February 3, 2012 – This week while speaking at the Aero
Club of Washington, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was asked by the CAPA ( the Coalition of Airline Pilots Associations) Executive Vice President Lee Collins, about a statement he made in December when issuing the FAA's new rule on pilot flight and duty time. This new rule carved-out cargo carriers from mandatory implementation, but allows them to opt-in to the rule
voluntarily.
Question asked by the CAPA’s Captain Lee Collins ;
"On December 20th, you announced the new flight time duty
Time rule and at that time you committed to a process of meeting with
Management of the all-cargo airlines and asking for voluntary compliance with the new rules. We just wanted to know some more thoughts on that and possibly a way forward should there not be voluntary effort on their part."
Secretary LaHood answered the question by saying:
"I have invited our friends from the Cargo Airlines to come to my office and talk about really looking at the rule that we have adopted and implementing it.
We think it's important that they know what's in the rule and why it's
important and hear it from us and not read about it in the paper. And
I'm going to just ask them directly to be a part of it. I think they should
be. It's safe. Look, if everybody in this room believes in safety,
which we do and I know all of you do, I can't think of a reason why they
wouldn't want to do it. But we'll find out."
Interesting to note that of the 1500 or so major airline industry attendees, the legislative affairs group for UPS (United Parcel Service) and the Cargo Carriers Association were also in attendance, who may have not been pleased with Secretary LaHood’s response.
January, 2012
CRITICALLY FLAWED FLIGHT DUTY
AND REST REGULATIONS
Is it going to take a tragedy before we properly apply the new flight duty and rest rules?
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recently released the new flight duty and rest regulations required by the Airline Safety and Federal FAA Extension Act of 2010. These long awaited regulations were on the National Transportation Safety Board’s most wanted list for over twenty years and sought by airline labor groups for nearly as long. The FAA used all available science, convened an Aviation Rulemaking Committee and considered thousands of public comments to come up with the rules. When releasing the regulations the FAA acknowledged the following:
- “the universality of factors that lead to fatigue” - “fatigue threatens aviation”
- “naturally more tired at night than during the day
- "severe performance degradation” - “insufficiently alert during takeoffs and landings”
- “lapses in attention” –“delayed reaction” – “impaired logical reasoning”
Despite these acknowledgements, the regulations were released with a critical flaw: the exclusion of mandatory compliance by all-cargo operations. A safety system is only as strong as its weakest link and that link is fatigue in primarily all-night cargo operators that were excluded from the rule. Roughly 15% of all departures in the United States are all-cargo, and these aircraft interact with passenger carriers throughout our aviation system. Cargo and passenger Aircraft interact during numerous critical phases of flight to include Precision Radar Monitored (PRM) approaches and Land and Hold Short Operations (LASHO). During PRM approaches aircraft fly approaches with absolute minimum separation, relying on each other to fly precise approaches. During LASHO operations aircraft are cleared to land and hold short of a crossing runway or taxiway where other aircraft are operating.
An exemption similar to this was attempted in the early 90’s; TCAS was mandated for passenger carriers in 1992 while cargo carriers were exempt due to the cost of the system. Following fatal passenger/cargo midair in 1996, a near miss in 1997 (a UPS Boeing 747 and Air Force One) and two more near misses in 1999, TCAS was finally mandated for all cargo aircraft.
Until the new flight duty and rest regulations are applied to passenger carriers, all-cargo carriers and supplemental carriers we will never truly have one-level-of-safety, and we will never realize the true leap in safety these rules could provide.
Coalition of Airline Pilots Associations
World Headquarters
444 N. Capitol Street, Suite 532 ● Washington, DC 20001
(202) 624-3535 ● (202) 624-3536
www.capapilots.org ● @CAPApilots
CAPA refutes the ATA claims of mass cost increases and job losses with FAA Fatigue Rules Revision
(September 29, 2011 - Washington, DC). On September 15, 2011, The Air Transport Association (ATA) stated that the proposed FAA Fatigue rules would cost the airlines an additional $2 billion a year and result in the loss of 27,000 airline jobs and as many as 400,000 industry related jobs.
This is clearly another example of the ATA’s “sky is falling” refrain. If the ATA’s claims were on point, would the nation’s airline pilots be supporting rule changes that would lead to significant loss of jobs and weaken our nation’s airlines? The answer is simple…No.
While we acknowledge that there are costs associated with the new proposed fatigue rules, the actual costs will be much more in line with the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) estimates, not the inflated costs the industry is claiming. Additionally, management at our nation’s airlines should be able to minimize any impact with proper oversight, as they have in the past with other government required changes. Remember the ATA saying the sky was falling when Congress was proposing a Passenger Bill of Rights? The ATA’s predictions of disastrously higher costs didn’t result from that legislation either.
In fact, the voices in opposition to these new rules come from people who have never operated a flight under the archaic and inadequate rules that our nation’s pilots currently operate under every day. They have never been subject to the debilitating effect of fatigue on crew performance. They have never had to deal with struggling to stay awake in the cockpit at the end of a long day. Instead, they are merely industry lobbyists, delivering the industry’s “cry wolf” on this vital issue.
The industry panic button has shut down progress toward a safer industry before. In the mid 1990’s, industry stakeholders worked with the FAA on updating fatigue rules which had not been effectively modified in over 30 years. Real progress was being made until the industry threw out grossly exaggerated claims of increased costs, and threatened legal action if enacted. The effort subsequently died. During the intervening time the National Transportation Safety Board has cited fatigue in numerous accidents (including fatal accidents) as a result of inaction on this much needed safety improvement.
CAPA and its member associations support the FAA Administrator’s call for “One Level of Safety” for pilots of passenger, cargo and supplemental airlines. Additional efforts being made by the Cargo Airline Association (CAA) and The National Air Carriers Association (NACA) to further reduce safety levels by exempting Cargo and Charter Airlines from these proposed rules is wholly unacceptable, and should be ignored by the administration.
As a voice for pilots supporting their families and communities, CAPA very much wants the nation’s airlines to be successful and profitable as well as safe. Our passengers and crewmembers deserve nothing less than the very utmost in a safe and efficient modern airline system. We call for the immediate release of the FAA’s Flight and Duty Time regulations as proposed earlier this year by the FAA Administrator without further delay. The interference and delay tactics by opposing stakeholders must cease.
Further, we call for the Administration to disregard industry’s inaccurate statements, and enact the improved Flight and Duty Time rules to provide the “One Level of Safety” our nation deserves.
- Captain Carl Kuwitzky
President