Know vital details about the bipartisan FAA reauthorization legislation for flyers.
Overseeing the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), two House and Senate committees have prepared a draft law that emphasizes the agency's priorities. The bill allocates over $105 billion and $738 million for the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) from fiscal years 2024 to 2028 respectively.
In the Senate last week, a procedural action paved the way for a potential vote as early as this week. The current legislation that directs the FAA is set to expire on May 10.
Here's a summary of what the bill covers:
Airline refunds as law
The FAA's legislation would make official new Department of Transportation regulations about airline refunds for canceled or severely delayed flights.
A domestic flight should receive a refund if it is delayed by three hours, while international flights would qualify for one after six hours. Airlines' websites must prominently display refund request buttons.
Recent DOT rules extend this further, mandating automatic refunds.
Airlines would also need to implement policies for reimbursements related to lodging, meals, and transportation to the airport due to airlines' cancellations or delays that directly caused them.
Extended validity for travel credits
Travel credits substituted for refunds by airlines would need to stay valid for at least five years, according to the bill.
Longer cockpit voice recordings
Commercial airlines would need to be equipped with cockpit voice recorders that last for 25 hours, as opposed to the current two-hour limit. This aligns with NTSB's request and would massively increase the recording duration.
The cockpit voice recorder, one of two black boxes in an aircraft, only records two hours of audio currently. NTSB states that several crucial data points often fall outside of the two-hour window, making them unusable for investigating accidents.
Recruit and train more air traffic controllers
The FAA would need to hire and educate as many air traffic controllers as possible to fill a 3,000 vacancy gap. It would also order more research into the right quantity of controllers at each terminal or facility, with an increase in accessible training simulators at regional air traffic control towers.
Improve runway safety
The FAA must install extra runway tech at medium and large-sized airports to minimize runway collisions and near-collisions. Existing runway technology is only found in roughly 36 US airports, and played a role in averting a collision at New York's John F. Kennedy airport in January 2023.
This issue still persists: less than two weeks ago, the FAA announced probes into two close calls at significant US airports.
Enhance security for airport workers
The bill intends to strengthen the regulations against attacking airline workers who spiked during the pandemic. Furthermore, it will improve the self-defense training given to flight attendants, to help them handle unruly passengers and other threats.
What the bill leaves out:
Mandatory airline seat sizes
While the bill won't force airlines to meet a minimum standard for seat size, it directs the FAA to reconsider seating arrangements and airplane evacuation standards.
Despite some concerns over small coach seats, the FAA previously examined seat sizes by testing in a simplified model aircraft with only able-bodied adults. When seeking feedback last autumn, over 26,000 comments were submitted.
Considering passenger safety, consumer groups and FlyersRights pushed for larger seats on airplanes.
Pilot retirement age increase
The legislation doesn't call for increasing commercial airline pilots' retirement age from 65 to 67.
Although there's an escalating shortage of pilots, the push for a 67 retirement age has faced resistance from pilot unions. These unions demand more research to guarantee safety and argue airlines could recruit sufficient qualified pilots.
Pilot retirement age climbed from 60 to 65 in 2007.
Utilize flight simulators more frequently
The new FAA bill does not make it possible for pilots to use flight simulators to gain license qualification time instead of in-flight hours. A last-minute move to include this halted a committee vote on the FAA authorization in June 2021.
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Source: edition.cnn.com
