THIS IS SERIOUS STUFF, GUYS!

[Mike]

Are any of you reading these kind of articles?

Combined with the proposed tax changes for buying airplanes the future of aviation is looking grim. 
Somehow everything at the FAA is stalled lately. We can't even get a waiver we've benn getting for years at my dayjob lately.....
And our application for flying hazmat has been dragging on for 6 years now.
How is anybody supposed to keep operating if this is going on?


Uncertainty for US airports persists as FAA reauthorization stalls

By Aaron Karp | July 6, 2011

2 Share EmailPrintNews from ATW's Airports Today: The US Congress last week again passed a short-term FAA funding extension as lawmakers continued to fail to reach agreement on the long-term agency reauthorization bill that airports across the US say is necessary to bring stability to construction project planning.

The latest extension, the 20th enacted since FAA's authorization officially expired Sept. 30, 2007, will keep the agency running through July 22. Multiple sources with knowledge of Congressional negotiations aimed at producing a long-term bill told ATW that a number of disagreements remain unresolved, fueling pessimism that FAA reauthorization will be passed in the near-term.

FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt, Airports Council International-North America and airport directors around the US have been saying for some time that uncertainty over FAA funding, particularly the Airport Improvement Program that helps finance expansion programs, is causing disruptions to airport construction projects (ATW's Airports Today, Oct. 5, 2010). "For over three-and-a-half years we've been operating on extensions," Babbitt noted during a recent speech. "It's been very difficult to run an agency on extensions … We need to restore long-term stability to funding."

The Republican-led House of Representatives and Democratic-controlled Senate passed separate FAA reauthorization bills earlier this year and have been unable to bridge the differences to craft unified legislation that both chambers could pass and send to President Barack Obama for signature into law (ATW Daily News, April 4).

According to those familiar with the House/Senate negotiations, four issues remain stumbling blocks to a deal, three of which directly relate to airports. These include a lack of agreement over distributing slots at Washington National Airport, AIP funding levels and whether to phase out the Essential Air Service program that subsidizes flights to airports in rural communities. The fourth issue, which is not directly relevant to airports but may prove to be the most contentious area of disagreement, relates to the House bill's repeal of the National Mediation Board's decision last year to change air and rail labor group voting rules to lower the threshold for unionization.

The House bill also calls for phasing out EAS for all states except Alaska and Hawaii by 2013. ACI-NA, the American Assn. of Airport Executives, the Regional Airline Assn. and the National Assn. of State Aviation Officials jointly stated in a letter to Congress, "Of the 435 [US] commercial airports outside of Alaska and Hawaii, 106 of those airports receive air service only through the Essential Air Service program. Eliminating the program at those airports would shut down air travel to and from nearly one-quarter of our nation's commercial airports. The economic impact on our nation's air transportation network … would be substantial."

.

[Mike]

here is the other article I was talking about:


When President Obama last week lumped together business jet owners and hedge fund managers — what average citizen doesn't think of Bernie Madoff when he hears that phrase? — as examples of rich people getting unfair tax breaks, it was clear that the gloves had come off. The President was once again picking what he perceived as an easy target and again it is business aviation. The President singled out accelerated depreciation as a special tax break that the very wealthy enjoy and that the country can't afford.

The problem is that the President himself made accelerated depreciation — which is, at heart, a tax break on business aircraft — part of his own stimulus package. So when he attacked the break, he was attacking his own program. The White House has officially declined credit for the creation of the program, though it has not denied its endorsement of it.

The problem is, the President wants his cake — getting credit for helping to revitalize American industry — and eat it too — by attacking those fat cat bizjet owners as leverage to get tax increases in his budget fight with Congressional Republicans.

My mom used to tell me when you want to get to the heart of the matter, look not at what someone says but at what they do. The President is one of the world's foremost users of business aviation — as has been every chief executive for 50 years before him — and when campaign season is in full swing (as it seems to be half the time these days), his bizjet use is supercharged. He knows that important people doing important business and living their lives use bizjets to get things done. That's because he's one of those people. The bottom line is, President Obama understands perfectly how useful bizjets are. So it is politically cynical of him to vilify bizjet "owners" for political gain while he benefits from the very model he demonizes.

The other big problem for President Obama is that the bizjet model he is now attacking is responsible for billions of dollars of economic activity and hundreds of thousands of jobs in the United States. If it takes some tax incentives to help create an environment in which people continued to buy the airplanes that support that kind of activity, the President should do the right thing, pass up the opportunity to make political hay at the industry's — and the American people's — expense and get down to the hard job of making tough choices.

Because when it comes down to it, the President is really just lobbying for tax increases, but regardless of which side of that issue you fall on, it serves no one's best interests to attack such an important part of our national economy. There's simply too much at stake.

[Stef]

Are they waiting for August to see if the debt ceiling will be increased, or what is going on there? I have a suggestion: How about transferring funding from the TSA to the FAA?

And as for the business jet story: True, they are an important part of aviation, but somehow I'd be happier if they were concerned about the little guys as much as they are about business jets...

[G-man]

We can't even get a waiver we've benn getting for years at my dayjob lately.....
And our application for flying hazmat has been dragging on for 6 years now.

Who did you piss off, or is it an LA thing....? I renewed my waiver by fax, (and added another pilot to it by e-mail), and got our Hazmat signed and stamped in 3 weeks.....

[Baradium]

Delta just announced they are going to drop service to 24 markets.  Most of them are EAS routes.  The problem with a lot of the EAS routes in the lower 48 is people don't neccessarily fly out of those airports anyway if they live there.  They might drive to another airport that is somewhat close by to fly out of instead.   So you end up with flights sometimes just going completely empty becuase the EAS requires the flight to go.  Either way, the load factors tend to be quite low.

Realistically, I don't have a problem with EAS being suspended in the continental US.  In Alaska and Hawaii there are reasons for it, but in the Continental US you are not restricting access to the communities even if air service does cease, people can still drive and a lot do.

[Mike]

it would hurt us in the Fire business tremdously.
almost all fires are in little towns and not the big cities

I fear I'm gonna spend A LOT of time driving in the future....

 

[Baradium]

it would hurt us in the Fire business tremdously.
almost all fires are in little towns and not the big cities

I fear I'm gonna spend A LOT of time driving in the future....

 

While I do feel for you, it's really hard to justify paying for scheduled flights year round for just some of those communities to have service for short periods during the year.  If you look at the list of cities affected, most of them are within an hour of another airport that isn't included in the EAS.   Compare that to montana and other areas of the midwest where you have more than that far between airports anyway and it will just even out the service.  A large number of EAS airports are in the Eastern US, many of them are so close to a hub airport that it's faster to drive to the hub airport than to take a flight. That is a big part of the problem with the system.  The majority of passengers from those airports simply buy a ticket out of another one and drive to it instead of using their local airport.  Two examples are Tupelo, MS and Muscle Shoals, AL. 

[Mike]

what are you flying right now, Baradium?

Wasn't that exactly your job for a while? (flying small commuter planes)
what are the young time-builders gonna fly?

I do get your point. It makes sense. We actually start going away from flying to EAT for a contract. Instead we'll just get a rental car out of SEATAC and drive. Takes the same time more or less.....
But there is so much money being wasted in this country and this cut will cost jobs yet again.....

[Baradium]

Right now I'm flying CRJ-200s, one of the 50 seat RJs.

When I was flying the turboprops (this was in AK), we didn't do any EAS flying.   In the areas where people actually need the airport to get around, there is enough demand even from quite small communities to support multiple airlines operating a fair number of flights.  There would be 2-4 airlines serving a community with multiple flights each with just a few hundred people or less.  As soon as more than one airline is in the market, the EAS is taken away (if it was ever there in the first place). 


In the lower 48, the small turboprops are going away.  They are being replaced by the regional jets now.  And the jets just aren't efficient enough to go into a community that will only support 10 people each way.  The beech 1900 could probably break even with 5-10 people without too much trouble.  The 50 seat RJ needs more like 30-40. 

Halting service to EAS communities is not going to cost a single actual flying job.  We have over 3000 pilots at my current company. Even if all the EAS flying stopped today, the effect on the number of hours per pilot would be negligible.  As it is we are hiring as fast as we can train, and so are all the other regionals. 

Which is it?  Is there too much money being wasted or too many jobs lost from the cuts?   Any area where money is wasted does represent a job somewhere.  The problem is that jobs for the sake of jobs aren't neccessarily good for the economy in the first place.  If these communities really needed the airline service, you wouldn't see 1/2-3/4 (sometimes more like 90% or more) of the people traveling from those communities driving the entire way or driving to other nearby airports.


As far as the young time builders go...  again this has a negligible affect on the number of flying jobs availible as well as the minimums posted.



The new FAA rules requiring an ATP have been watered down so much that the ATP will just be the new commercial.  The hours will be reducable based on "classroom" time.   I anticipate that you'll see part 141 programs issuing ATPs to 250 hour pilots.   We are already directly hiring from a few universities.  And we are not the only airline doing this. 

what are you flying right now, Baradium?

Wasn't that exactly your job for a while? (flying small commuter planes)
what are the young time-builders gonna fly?

I do get your point. It makes sense. We actually start going away from flying to EAT for a contract. Instead we'll just get a rental car out of SEATAC and drive. Takes the same time more or less.....
But there is so much money being wasted in this country and this cut will cost jobs yet again.....

[LiL Tornado]

Are any of you reading these kind of articles?

How is anybody supposed to keep operating if this is going on?

 We need to restore long-term stability to funding."

Eliminating the program at those airports would shut down air travel to and from nearly one-quarter of our nation's commercial airports. The economic impact on our nation's air transportation network … would be substantial."

.

[LiL Tornado]

This posting is my response to the former quote.

How much funding are you guys talking about?

I know that what you do is very important to "the little towns."  But what about the county, state and federal lands adjacent to these small towns? 

Your services must be important to the organizations that control our rural land, especially if the land yields valuable natural resources.  Can't you petition to transfer the responsibility of funding to a similar administration? 

What about the mining corporations?  They travel across many acres of land and many miles of secondary roads in order to reach numerous drill sites.  The safety of their personnel and their equipment will be jeopardized if fire crews are handicapped from reaching remote destinations.

Public or Private - does it matter where the money comes from?  Perhaps there is an entity better suited to administer optimal  control and distribution of safety services.

Instead of pointing out the obvious flaws currently blocking future planning, why not do some practical brainstorming?  You folks are very intelligent,  thoughtful and creative.  I believe you have the knowledge and influence to affect positive changes to the issues at hand.


Just a thought...

[undatc]

I hate to frame it like this, but EAS and NEXGEN are not the real issues with FAA re-authorization. 

It Rep/Dem politics, and John Mica's personal crusade against aviation unions.  The ONLY thing holding back this bill is a little part that deals with language concerning how transportation employees can unionize.  Regardless of how you feel about unions, you should look at it like this, John Mica wants to TAKE AWAY your right to do something.  And he's holding EAS and all the other programs at ransom until the D's on the house transportation committee cave to his demands.

I hate using Rachael Maddow to illustrate the point, but she does a pretty dang good job here.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/43834112#43834112

[LiL Tornado]

Thanks for helping with the details of this issue.  I am not fully informed of all the hurdles.

I was a Clark County Teacher's Union rep for many years.  At one time, they were courting me to run for Union President in Clark County Nevada.  I helped create and re-write state policy. 

Currently, the Teacher's Union has lost its strength, which is a direct reflection of the economic times, and the lack of "balls" among new teachers.  The union and the school district swim in the same pond, in my estimation.

So, who are your Union Representatives?  Do you have any influential Lobbyists?  Contact me, if you wish, and I will "drop a few names."  There are several strong Lobbyists  in northern Nevada who might want to support your cause.  I would be proud to pass on their names to you.

Sincerely,

LiL Tornado
(aka Susan Devroy)
The Spare Tire
Caliente, NV
775-726-3611

[Mike]

I hate to frame it like this, but EAS and NEXGEN are not the real issues with FAA re-authorization. 

It Rep/Dem politics, and John Mica's personal crusade against aviation unions.  The ONLY thing holding back this bill is a little part that deals with language concerning how transportation employees can unionize.  Regardless of how you feel about unions, you should look at it like this, John Mica wants to TAKE AWAY your right to do something.  And he's holding EAS and all the other programs at ransom until the D's on the house transportation committee cave to his demands.

I hate using Rachael Maddow to illustrate the point, but she does a pretty dang good job here.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/43834112#43834112

So, the FAA did get shut down for now, right?
Except you guys of course but all airport work and administrative work is on hold for the time being.
Did I get that right?

[undatc]

So, the FAA did get shut down for now, right?
Except you guys of course but all airport work and administrative work is on hold for the time being.
Did I get that right?

Yes and no.

FAA reauth involves trust fund money that you pay in the form of landing fees and gas taxes(and a whole slew of other fees that airports pay that the user never sees), that goes to airport programs and development.  This funds about 4000 employees within the FAA and countless projects, (everything from new signage, new buildings, comm sites, EAS, nexgen, ERAM, all kinds of things.)  There is also money that funds the FAA from the general fund and other allotments from different bills.  In general, this will not effect day to day operations of the FAA, what it will effect are any improvement/refurb projects out there, and the associated support staff/contractors.

Thanks for the offer Tornado, my union has a pretty powerful PAC (political action committee), and even with the R held house, we've been effective in getting legislation through.  The problem lays with John Mica (R-Florida) that has held hostage the house transportation committee for a number of years.  Every negative thing that has effected aviation in the last 10 years has come from him.  This guy has a personal vendetta again GA and flying in general.  He's major bad news for people that like to fly.