Tag Archives for FAA.
The FAA’s air traffic controller shortage, particularly acute in New York due to inadequate staffing incentives and high rejection rates of new controllers, has led to flight delays, reduced schedules, and higher airfares, with recent political and logistical efforts to address the crisis facing resistance – from Senator Chuck Schumer.
After a number of high profile incidents, the FAA has been auditing safety practices at United Airlines. They’ve been unable to open up flights to new cities or add new delivery aircraft to their fleet, and they have had to defer already-announced service.
There was some worry that this could drag on as the Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General announced an audit of the FAA’s audit.
The FAA Reauthorization bill requires travel agents to provide refunds where they are the vendor of record charging the customer – even when they’ve paid the airline and the airline hasn’t given the money back to them (if they ever get the money back).
The Senate and House each developed FAA Reauthorization legislation, which includes four years of new funding and a number of policy changes.
Senator Joe Manchin, though, says he’s ready to try to blow up the process over the 5 new flights that are being authorized for Washington’s Reagan National airport in the bill.
The House and Senate both passed FAA reauthorization bills. That left a committee from both chambers to decide what actually went into the bill that heads back for a vote. What’s in the final bill coming out of conference is probably what gets passed and signed by the President. This is what’s really inside.
The FAA reportedly won’t let United Airlines grow. They’re taking an active presence at the airline. Reportedly no new planes can enter commercial service, pilots can’t get certified, and new routes can’t be announced.
It’s been broadly covered that the FAA is stepping up inspections of United’s operation. United itself shared this with its employees, and made its employee note public. However the FAAs involvement is far greater than has been revealed publicly.
Persistent air traffic controller shortages in New York are addressed through the FAA’s strategic relocation of Newark’s air traffic control to Philadelphia, aiming to mitigate delays and congestion despite previous political opposition and ongoing staffing challenges.
The FAA had gone to off-the-street hiring to meet diversity goals but the problem was there weren’t enough training slots, and qualified controllers were being passed over when we need controllers. Whitaker’s approach lets the agency train controllers from a variety of backgrounds without sacrificing onboarding those that have gone through training privately already.
But what if New York TRACON refuses all new controllers to keep their overtime hours up?
The federal government keeps kicking the air traffic control crisis in New York down the road. About three quarters of all airspace delays track to the New York metro area, according to the FAA. And this has knock-on effects as delays of planes flying out of New York wind up causing downline delays elsewhere in the country. So far all the government has been able to do is encourage airlines to fly less, rather than fixing the problem. The government hands out the right to takeoff and land at congested airports (“slots”) to incumbent airlines. These are treated as property rights (given free, so subsidies) that block competitors from entering the market. Since there’s a severe shortfall in air traffic controllers in the New York area, the government has waived the normal requirement that airlines…
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
