Not a bad idea to generate some discussion and get a few people thinking.

But you are likely to waste you time talking about what should be done, or what you would like to be done, unless you first understand WHY and HOW things are done, and why things are not done...

1. The people in the position to make or influence a change must "want" to do so. They don't have to REALLY want to, but they have to at least have outside pressures applied which makes the alternative worse than the change in question. Example...

The FAA doesn't really want to improve duty regulations, it's more work for them and stirs up trouble with their airline patrons. Remember that one of the FAA's official missions is the "promotion of aviation"...since the airlines have the most money to throw around, they get promoted more than less-funded institutions such as GA, 135, safety, etc.

But it looks like congress has forced the issue. They are doing this because colgan has generated enough public outrage such that...

- A handful of politicians can substantially increase their ratings and/or name recognition by getting out in front of this issue. This ensures that bills are proposed.

- This issue is ugly enough that few congresspeople (unless they are REALLY well funded by the ATA) are going to go on record in opposition...that is the kind of stuff from which legendary campaign attack ads are made of.


2. Any change which is not a "win-win" for everybody is going to generate resistance from whoever is going to lose.

- The airlines are obviously fighting all reforms tooth-and-nail.

- The aviation universities were facing annihilation at the hands of the ATP requirement...if they had taken the less-ingenious approach they might have simply tried to block the legislation. This might well have failed anyway, but making the attempt would give the impression that they value money over safety (which they do of course). But they came up with a better approach...they are trying to turn the lemon into lemonade. If they allow the ATP rule to pass, but manipulate the process to allow extensive ground training to count instead of flight training, they accomplish two things...

They save their own butts, by ensuring that young people can still pay a whole lot of money for a very little flight time and get an airline job.

They also knock out some of the competition...if the law is written to require ground training from an accredited university, the non-university puppy mills will be SOL.

So what can we realistically do?

- We can't strike any more.

- We can find win-win opportunities (rare)

- We can write our congress people (limited effectiveness since we are not big donors)

- We can contribute to a PAC (effectiveness limited only by $$$)

- We can try to manipulate the forces which REALLY have some influence. For example the general public, if sufficiently annoyed, can cause change via congress (if congresspeople see a PR opportunity or a PR landmine, either one).