Numerous Pilot Groups Respond To Letter from Cargo Airline Chief Pilots

Pilot groups are lobbying hard as the U.S. Senate works to finalize the FAA reauthorization bill and move it to the U.S. House of Representatives.

In the latest development, a group of pilot associations including the Independent Pilots Association (IPA);the Coalition of Airline Pilots Associations (CAPA); Air Line Pilots Association International (ALPA); Allied Pilots Association (APA); Airline Division, International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT); Teamsters Local 1224; ALPA FedEx Master Executive Council and Teamsters Local 357 have sent a letter to the Senate leadership offering their support for the Boxer amendment to end the cargo carve-out and restore one-level of safety to commercial aviation.

The group calls a letter from cargo airline industry signed by their management chief pilots "misleading".

The pilot groups said in their letter that the letter dated April 11th, 2016 from the Chief Pilots of all-cargo airlines was "a misleading attempt to establish a new set of facts about pilot fatigue. Fatigue rules are not, as these pilots claim, 'clearly designed for passenger airline operations.'

"On the contrary, the FAA did not design these rules for one type of pilot; the FAA's original NPRM states that "The FAA has decided against proposing special rules for all-cargo operations because there are no physiological differences between pilots who fly cargo planes and pilots who fly passenger planes."

"The court case cited in the letter was procedural; it dealt with whether the FAA had the authority to apply a cost benefit analysis (CBA) to the rule. At the end of the day, in 2010, Congress told the DOT/FAA to write rules that address pilot fatigue (without any distinction between passenger and cargo).

"Whether pilots are in the air or on the ground waiting to have their aircraft loaded, they are on the job. The difference in in-air time between passenger and cargo does not mean a difference in overall duty time. Science tells us that, although the nature of their operations is different, fatigue does not discriminate between the types of pilots.

"There is no physiological difference between cargo and commercial pilots." It wasn't the FAA—or aviation safety experts, or science—that originally made the distinction between cargo and commercial pilots; it was only after the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) caved to special interest lobbying that we were given two different levels of safety for all-cargo and passenger airlines in the United States.

"That's why we are asking for the Senate to pass Boxer amendment #3489 to restore one level of safety to the skies."

The letter was signed by:

• Captain Mike Karn, President Coalition of Airline Pilots Associations
• Captain Tim Canoll, President Airline Pilots Association, International
• Captain Robert Travis, President Independent Pilots Association
• Captain Keith Wilson, President Allied Pilots Association
• Captain David Bourne, Director Airline Division International Brotherhood of Teamsters
• Captain Dan Wells, President Teamsters Local 1224
• Captain Chuck Dyer, Chairman ALPA FedEx Master Executive Council
• Captain Jim Clark, President Teamsters Local 357

(Source: Independent Pilots Association news release)

FMI: www.ipapilot.org