Well, you just had to see this coming. The ATA out with their lies about how they can't afford anything, blah, blah, blah. 15 times more expensive than stated??? I don't think so.
Pilot-Rest Rule May be 15 Times More Costly Than Projected, Airlines Say
By John Hughes - Nov 16, 2010 12:01 AM ET
A Federal Aviation Administration plan to give pilots more rest in response to a fatal crash in upstate New York will be 15 times more expensive than projected, the airlines’ trade group said in opposing the rules.
The Air Transport Association in Washington, representing the nation’s biggest carriers, said the plan is “onerous” and
would cost $19.6 billion in the next 10 years, not $1.25 billion as projected by the FAA.
“The factual record that the FAA organized is riddled with mistakes and the analysis fails to make a rational connection between the facts, science and operational experience,” the trade group, whose members include
United Continental Holdings Inc. and
Delta Air Lines Inc., said yesterday in comments.
Labor unions for pilots also faulted the agency proposal, signaling the FAA failed to reach a consensus on a plan that would revamp fatigue rules that have been in effect for decades with results of research showing the number of takeoffs and landings, not just hours worked, affects tiredness.
The
rule proposed on Sept. 10, which could change after the comments are reviewed, must become final by next August, under a deadline set by Congress.
The agency is proposing that airline pilots would get nine hours of
rest between shifts, a 13 percent rise from current schedules. The changes, prompted by an airline crash that left no survivors last year near Buffalo, New York, also would require that pilots get at least 30 consecutive work-free hours a week, a 25 percent increase from existing rules.
Pilots Object
Pilots for carriers such as
AMR Corp.’s American Airlines and
US Airways Group Inc. also object, saying the FAA should scrap part of the plan that in some cases would let crews operate the controls as long as 10 hours, up from eight.
“You cannot reduce pilot fatigue by increasing the time the pilot is at the controls,”
Jeffrey Skiles, first officer on the US Airways flight that crashed without fatalities into the Hudson River in New York in January 2009, said at a Nov. 10 news conference.
The FAA began overhauling the rules in June 2009, four months after a regional jet flying for
Continental Airlines Inc. crashed near Buffalo, killing 50 people, including both pilots. The National Transportation Safety Board concluded the pilots’ performances probably were impaired by fatigue, though it couldn’t determine the extent of their tiredness or the role that may have played.
Captain Marvin Renslow, 47, “had experienced chronic sleep loss,” the board said in its report, which blamed the crash of the plane from
Pinnacle Airline Corp.’s Colgan Air unit on his incorrect response to a cockpit stall warning.
Magnitude Faulted
The Regional Airline Association, a Washington-based group with members including Pinnacle, said in its comments yesterday that it would support any FAA effort to withdraw and replace the current pilot-fatigue plan.
“The magnitude of the necessary changes that we see is beyond what we would have hoped for,” according to the association, whose members include
Republic Airways Holdings Inc. and
SkyWest Inc. “Airlines strongly believe that getting the regulation right is more important than getting it out quickly.”
The proposal limits workdays to as few as nine hours when a pilot flies seven or more segments. Those who start between midnight and 4 a.m. also face a nine-hour limit. Pilots who begin from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. could work as long as 13 hours.
The maximum workday would be trimmed to 13 hours, from 16 under the 1940s-era rules last updated in 1985. Unions have said the current eight-hour break between shifts is insufficient, because after waiting in airport security lines and traveling to hotels, pilots may have only a few hours for sleep.
To contact the reporter on this story:
John Hughes in Washington at
[email protected].
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Larry Liebert at
[email protected]