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.

FMI: http://schumer.senate.gov, www.faa.gov