Congress allocates money for the FAA every five years and consequently, this disputational group gets to set some general priorities (after an amazing amount of discussion). The FAA Reauthorization Bill just passed mandates some important new initiatives. The items mentioned in the summary of this huge document include these new requirements:
- expanding air traffic controller training/hiring;
- requiring the FAA to operationalize key programs (NextGen) by 12/25;
- requiring air carriers to provide a full refund, upon request, to pax w/nonrefundable ticket for a canceled or significantly delayed flight;
- increasing the number of daily round-trip flights allowed at KDCA;
- establishing a new DOT grant program for airports to dispose of products that contain PFAS (largely firefighting foam)
- requiring the FAA to update safety standards for commercial air tour operators;
- requiring the FAA to establish a regulatory pathway for the certification or approval of commercial unmanned aircraft (i.e., drones) to operate beyond the visual line of sight;
- establish a competitive grant program at DOT to enable eligible flight training schools to recruit and train veterans, who are not already military aviators
- Basic Med authorization expanded from 6,000lbs. up to 12,500 lbs. and 7 pax (currently 80K pilots using Basic Med).
- 100LL will continue to be available at all airports until an alternative fuel is commercially available (through 2030)
- $1B airport improvement funds for GA Airports (rather than just airline-dominated airports)
What New Changes Affect CFIs & GA Pilots
- Sets aside money for recruiting and training new pilots,
- Boosts student loan limits for pilot training and
- Provides grants for recently discharged military veterans to become commercial pilots – especially if they’re not already aviators.
Additionally, the “non-expiring CFI certificate” that was revealed earlier this year (and reviewed in this blog) is mandated for passage:
the FAA shall, “Not later than 18 months after the date of enactment of this Act, the Administrator shall issue a final rule for the rulemaking activity titled ‘‘Removal of the Expiration Date on a Flight Instructor Certificate’’, published in Fall 2022 in the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions (RIN 2120–AL25)”
And for DPEs (and the flight training community) three important initiatives were included to help ease the testing crunch:
1) within three years the FAA must address the discrepancy that allows CFIs to teach with Basic Med but does not allow DPEs to test applicants with Basic Med.
2) the FAA will be required to report “the estimated total time individuals in each region were forced to wait to schedule an appointment with a designated pilot examiner,” and “the primary reasons and best ways to reduce wait .”
3) The FAA is required to “establish an office to provide oversight and facilitation national coordination of designated pilot examiners appointed…” The mission of this office would be to help standardize and manage DPEs throughout the country including developing FAA policy, guidance, and regulations that define training, duties, and deployment of designated pilot examiners.” The intent here is to standardize the (often contradictory) guidance between different FSDOs. This is especially important now that DPEs are not limited to a geographical region. Fly safely out there (and often)!
Social Flight interviewed Mark Baker on the FAA Reauthorization Bill:
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