The Hill News

The U.S. airlines are very supportive of recent initiatives led by President Obama to eliminate unnecessary, unproductive and costly regulation. The FAA-proposed rule that seeks to change how airlines schedule pilots is a classic and very troubling example of an ill-conceived regulation with a good intent that fails to meet its objective and will result in significant unintended consequences, including job losses.

We fully support revisions to this outdated rule that would actually improve safety. Unfortunately, the rule as proposed is not science-based nor is it supported by any data or research that would indicate it would improve what is in fact the safest form of transportation in the United States.
 
Leading experts in fatigue management agree that the rule is flawed in several ways and will not make air travel safer, especially in areas concerning schedule reliability, flight-time limits and strict limits on extensions of duty periods.
 Some aspects of the proposal could even reduce safety. In addition, this proposal does not address the very different working environments of cargo and charter airlines compared with passenger airlines and if implemented, would put our carriers at a serious competitive disadvantage with their international counterparts for global business.

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