AGAIN

 

feels like a real kick in the pants!

"One level of Safety" unless you're a delivery boy! what a load!

maybe one day the FAA will REGULATE the industry.

 

Total bullcrap, I guess the lives of Cargo pilots/Engineers/FME's are not worth as much as pax carrying crews.....BS I say.

 

It never was about protecting the crews ...

only the potential loss of passenger life

 

And yet, the vast majority of guys I fly with vote Republican. How much more will it take for pilots to realize that the Republican party and in this case, the Republican-controlled House, will say anything to the public but will always vote in support of business leaders. Go ahead and be unhappy with the President as a person but realize that the Democratic Party's platform supports workers rights and workers benefits and guess what? Pilots are workers.

 

Some of us will never understand that you will only get what you pay for with any of them. The "platform" has proven to be rather flimsy over the last sixty years. One can only laugh at the naive.

 

I hate to say it, but we lost this in the OMB, which is controlled by the White House. The lobbyists ware able to get the change during the budgeting process. The OMB's purview is to cost out rules/laws, not change them. This whole thing is totally corrupt, regardless of party. Follow the money....

 

American Airlines Resuming Service After Clinton Stops Strike - NYTimes.com

Yeah, Democrats have undoubtedly been in support of workers' rights and benefits.

 

"Every pilot has a personal responsibility to arrive at work fit for duty," said FAA Acting Administrator Michael Huerta. "This new rule gives pilots enough time to get the rest they really need to safely get passengers to their destinations."

Development of the rules pitted the pilots, who advocated greater rest for safety, against the airlines, which argued that limiting flight times will raise costs.

FAA estimated the rule would cost airlines nearly $300 million a year. But Airlines for America, a trade group representing airlines, estimated it could cost $2 billion more each year.

Another dispute in development of the rules was whether to apply the same rules to cargo pilots as the pilots of commercial airliners. The FAA decided not to apply to rules to cargo pilots because of the costs to that industry, Huerta said.

LaHood said he would invite cargo executives to his office in 2012 and urge them to voluntarily to adopt the rule.

"It was tough to implement it on cargo because of the cost-benefit to this," LaHood said.

The package-delivery company UPS argued in comments to the FAA against the same standards because cargo pilots fly mostly at night and carry fewer people. The company's 2,600 pilots have gotten used to flying at night and sleeping by day, so limiting consecutive overnight flights would disrupt them. The company warned that night-time restrictions would require them to hire more pilots and install sleeping facilities on some planes.

Robert Travis, president of the Independent Pilots Association for UPS pilots, blasted the exemption for cargo pilots.

"Giving air cargo carriers the choice to opt-in to new pilot rest rules makes a much sense as allowing truckers to 'opt-out' of drunk driving laws," Travis said. "To potentially allow fatigued cargo pilots to share the same skies with properly rested passenger pilots creates an unnecessary threat to public safety."

The National Transportation Safety Board has urged safety enhancements to reduce pilot fatigue for decades. While the board didn't blame fatigue as a cause in the Colgan crash near Buffalo, the board found that neither pilot appeared to have slept in a bed the night before.

Relatives of the victims lobbied Congress for better schedules to give pilots rest. The relatives also urged FAA to complete the rules that were due Aug. 1, but were delayed with review by the White House Office of Management and Budget.

 

Now let's see how our MEC votes in January.