Final Rule Now Not Expected Before December 2017

The FAA's Associate Administrator for Aviation Safety Peggy Gilligan told the House Transportation Aviation Subcommittee Wednesday that the Part 23 re-write is about two years behind schedule, with a final rule now expected in December 2017.

In response to a question from Congressman Rick Nolan (DFL-MN), Gilligan said that the process of rewriting an entire section of the FARs has never been undertaken before, and "as we do this, we want to be sure we're improving the certification process and not losing any of the safety requirements that we have in place."

Gilligan said that "the schedule is somewhat slower than the legislation had envisioned" due to the comment and final rule process, but that the agency was "meeting its internal timelines" for the rewrite. But when asked to provide a specific date date by Congressman Nolan, Gilligan said "The final rule is now planned for, I think its December of 2017. That is later than the statute, which calls for a final rule by the end of 2015, but again, first the complexity of writing the rule and then getting it published for notice and comment, considering those comments and then finalizing the project will take a considerably longer time than was anticipated in the statute."

GAMA president and CEO Pete Bunce blasted the FAA for dragging out the timeline for two additional years. "We've been working on this initiative since back in 2007," Bunce said. "This is nothing new." He reminded the committee that the Small Aircraft Revitalization Act had been passed unanimously by both houses of Congress and signed by President Obama last Thanksgiving giving the FAA the 2015 deadline for the re-write.

"The bureaucracy is saying 'we don't care what you (in) congress say, we don't care what the President says, we're going to get it done when we want to get it done and it's going to be two years late’. And that's exactly what we have to put up with in industry."

While the FAA has developed plans to improve its process for certificating new aircraft products and technologies, too often implementation of needed changes has not resulted in the intended improvements, Bunce told the Subcommittee, which is chaired by U.S. Congressman Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ). Bunce cited as one example the FAA’s inability to change its policy of sequencing, which delays certification programs. After repeated public comments and proposals to replace sequencing, manufacturers remain frustrated that the current policy remains in place, making the FAA certification process unpredictable and uncompetitive for many companies.

Bunce said there are a thousand certifications and authorizations pending before the FAA, and no additional resources appear to be in the offing. "Each one of those are directly translatable to jobs," he said.

(Images from hearing video)

FMI: www.faa.gov, www.gama.aero, Video of hearing