Andrew Gambling’s Post

(Washington, D.C.) United States President Joe Biden signed the 2024 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Reauthorization Bill, H.R. 39335, into law yesterday, reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) as the country’s main aviation authority and providing $105 billion in funding for the FAA and $73 million for the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) for fiscal years 2024 through 2028. The bill contains a first-ever general aviation (GA) title, a key section of the legislation focused on enhancing safety, streamlining regulations and improving certification processes for general aviation aircraft, supporting certification for advanced air mobility (AAM) powered-lift aircraft and other technologies, and protecting flight privacy, per the National Business Aviation Association. 🚀 More on the specifics for commercial and general aviation at The FLY Report: https://lnkd.in/e4yw58Hv Michael Whitaker Ed Bolen National Business Aviation Association AOPA Alaska Airlines #aviation #commercial #generalaviation #GA #FLY #FAA

Gov’nt: Here to Help. #Concerned: There is a nuanced debate regarding the impact of government regulations on the aviation industry. While new legislative efforts are underway to increase the number of air traffic controllers and safety inspectors, there is a viewpoint that attributes much of the recent turmoil in aviation to excessive regulatory interventions. Critics argue that, although certain regulations enhance safety, many may inadvertently complicate operations and contribute to the sector’s challenges. This perspective suggests a careful reassessment of regulatory impacts to ensure they bolster safety without imposing unnecessary burdens. https://lnkd.in/gavYAFE2

The article "Risk at the Center of Regulatory Revisions" emphasizes how the FAA’s evolving regulations, including Safety Management System (SMS) requirements, are central to enhancing aviation safety. With a focus on risk management, the new mandates aim to foster a proactive safety culture across aviation operations. ACSF can assist operators in navigating these regulatory changes by offering tailored SMS tools designed to meet FAA Part 5 compliance and Annex 19 international standards. Our resources, including the IAS Lite audit and Member Assistance Program (MAP), provide essential support and expert guidance, ensuring organizations can effectively implement SMS, mitigate risks, and uphold safety best practices. Take the next step in strengthening your safety culture today! #aviationsafety #SMS #ACSF #ACSFMember

This Could Make Matters Worse. #Concerned: The latest aviation safety bill passed by the U.S. Senate might sound like a proactive step towards enhancing air travel, but a closer look might reveal it as just another example of misguided government intervention. By pumping $105 billion into measures like increasing air traffic control staffing and extending cockpit recording times, the bill seems to address the symptoms rather than the root causes of aviation safety issues, which many argue are spurred by previous regulatory actions. This legislative move could arguably entangle the industry in more red tape, potentially worsening the very problems it aims to solve. The real kicker? This heavy-handed approach could backfire, creating a bloated bureaucracy that hinders, rather than helps, the long-term efficiency and safety of air travel. So while lawmakers pat themselves on the back for their ‘sweeping’ reforms, one has to wonder if they’re just sweeping the real issues under the rug. https://lnkd.in/gcJVEtA2

More critical infrastructure policy news, this time for the aviation and airports sector in the U.S. Earlier this week, bipartisan lawmakers unveiled what's likely to be the final deal to regulate the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) over the next five years, with the Senate set to hold a procedural vote today on the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act. A lot of consumer news has been made of a recent Transportation Department regulation requiring airlines to refund customers for flight delays beyond a certain threshold that the bill would codify, but I wanted to highlight the move to mitigate potential runway collisions after a surge in close calls. The legislation, here, would require the FAA to install new technology at airports to help controllers keep closer tabs on the locations of passenger jets on runways. For more on the sprawling bill, read the Reuters summary, here: https://lnkd.in/gPDEax5K #teamnoggin #faa #nearmisses

Thanks to the Aviation Business Journal for interviewing me on SMS. This article presents some of the benefits and challenges of the new mandate https://lnkd.in/edhPQmyE

President Joe Biden signed on May 16 sweeping aviation legislation that will boost U.S. air traffic controller #staffing, increase funding to avert runway close-call incidents and speed up refunds for canceled flights. The $105 billion, five-year measure reauthorizes the Federal Aviation Administration. It prohibits airlines from charging fees for families to sit together, requires airplanes to be equipped with 25-hour cockpit recording devices, raises maximum civil penalties for airline consumer violations from $25,000 per violation to $75,000 and boosts aircraft production scrutiny. Biden has repeatedly clashed with air carriers, calling for new, stricter consumer rules and harshly criticizing them for imposing fees. His administration has also aggressively moved to block further consolidation in the passenger airline industry, including successfully blocking a tie-up between JetBlue Airways and Spirit Airlines and quashing an alliance between JetBlue and American Airlines. David Shepardson has more: https://reut.rs/3K75DsK #legal #legalnews

NEWS with Elan Head: The Federal Aviation Administration will act, via rule making, to close the 'loophole' for public charter flights set out in Part 380, requiring companies like JSX to operate under Part 121. The agency is also convening a larger committee to study the feasibility of future operating models for these types of operations, with big implications for #RAM, #AAM and business aviation. More on The Air Current:

The FAA announced today that it will be changing the definition of "scheduled" in Part 110...and will be implementing new rules as regards Part 135...and creating an SRMP for operations for aircraft from 10 to 30 pax. This follows on the heels of a new requirement that was pointed out last month with the passage of the FAA Reauthorization wherein Congress has created a new regulatory requirement that an Air Carrier be required to employ enough certificated dispatchers for Operational Control. (It does not specify just scheduled Air Carriers.) Almost everyone wants to work at a Legacy, right? But...I wonder how many people might find a Part 135 operation more appealing if it is operated under more stringent rules and requires Dispatchers for Joint Operational Control...you could live where you wanna live... Interesting developments afoot, I think. https://lnkd.in/gePhpSwn

Aviation A2Z / S - "Slots" (CTOT): Flights are delayed for various reasons - one of them is a delay due to the allocation of a CTOT (Calculated Take Off Time, colloquially referred to as a "slot") to a flight by Eurocontrol's Air Traffic Flow Management. The flight concerned must then take off later than the airline had planned in its flight plan submitted to the authority. In case law, it was disputed whether such a "slot" constituted an extraordinary circumstance within the meaning of the Passenger Rights Regulation. Some calm has now returned to the debate after "airport regional courts" ruled that “slots” are extraordinary circumstance and after the ECJ ruled that when defining extraordinary circumstance, events whose origin is “internal” must be distinguished from those whose origin is “external” and thus defined "extraordinary circumstance” as something that results “from external circumstances which are more or less frequent in practice but which the air carrier does not control because they arise from […] an act of a third party, such as […] a public operator interfering with flight activity (C-308/21 para. 25). Even before these decisions, difficulties in the legal categorisation of the CTOT arose less from the legal assessment than from the fact that some courts did not understand what a "slot" actually is and decisions were therefore based on (false) assumptions such as that every flight has a "slot", that local air traffic control can assign a “slot” or that a slot is allocated if an airline has to delay its own flight. None of this is the case: a CTOT is never allocated by the local controllers, but is a measure of Air Traffic Flow Management without an airline having any influence over it. The reason for the intervention is always the same: The aircraft should arrive at a certain en-route Waypoint later than planned (so-called Target Time Over - TTO), because otherwise there would be a risk of air traffic control capacity being exceeded in this area: simplified, more aircraft want to fly through this area at the same time than the controllers working there can currently handle. The reason for this, in turn, is usually a temporary reduction in the usual air traffic control capacity in this area due to weather events, technical conditions or because fewer controllers are working there. (This already shows that an airline cannot possibly cause a "slot" itself - no airline has any influence on the capacity of an entire air traffic control area). Air Traffic Flow Management equalises the air traffic through this area by assigning a new, delayed take-off time to each flight that is to fly through this area. According to Eurocontrol's delay report, 11% of all flights were assigned a CTOT in 2023 (this is the second-highest figure in the last 20 years), but this led to noticeable delays in very few cases, as the take-off time was usually only postponed by significantly less than 15 minutes.  #aviationA2Z #ASD #ArneckeSibethDabelstein