Says "Congress Was Clear" On Airline Training Requirements
U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) released a letter to FAA
Administrator Randy Babbitt on Wednesday urging him to reject a
formal advisory group’s recommendation to scale back the
1,500 hour training requirement enacted into law this summer.
Schumer wrote the legislation in response to the Flight 3407
tragedy near Buffalo. According to reports, the FAA-commissioned
panel, which is headed by a representative of the regional airline
industry, is proposing a training requirement of 500 hours.
“It’s outrageous that before the ink is even dry on
this new law, the airline industry is already waging a campaign to
undermine the very safety standards designed to prevent future
tragedies like Flight 3407,” Schumer (pictured,
above) said. “Congress was crystal clear when it said
that 1,500 training hours was the minimum level required for new
pilots and I’ll be fighting right alongside the 3407 families
to make sure that’s the case.”
A recent report revealed that an airline industry and labor
coalition is lobbying the FAA to ignore the clear Congressional
intent in The Airline Safety and Federal Aviation Administration
Extension Act of 2010, which mandates that flight crewmembers
obtain an Airline Transport Pilot (ATP) license with a minimum
1,500 hours of in-flight experience. The language, which the
President signed into law on August 1, 2010, makes very clear that
FAA is to craft a regulation to modernize the requirements of the
ATP license, including the 1,500 hour requirement, and extend those
requirements to all co-pilots flying commercial passengers. Today,
Schumer asked that the FAA disregard the efforts of industry
insiders who are undoubtedly acting out of their own best
interests, and not in the interests of the flying public.
"I strongly believe that FAA must not waver in undertaking this
rulemaking; it must be done expeditiously and with great rigor,"
Schumer wrote. "While some folks with a vested interest in cutting
airline costs would argue that 1,500 hours is too harsh a
requirement, I would point to the National Transportation Safety
Board findings that the crash of Colgan Flight 3407 was
attributable largely to pilot inexperience and error."
Schumer says the passage of The Airline Safety and Federal
Aviation Administration Extension Act of 2010 signaled a
long-awaited revision of the country’s laws governing
aviation safety, specifically for regional airlines. Section 217 of
the law, which requires the 1,500 hours of training, is especially
important to ensuring that all passenger airlines, both large
commercial and regional, are held to the highest possible levels of
safety. The 1,500 hour training requirement will provide a
long-awaited update to the pilot training, which is necessary to
guarantee that all pilots and flight crewmembers receive in-flight
training that is both abundant and rigorous.