During the past two months, seven ALPA pilots have played
a critical role in an FAA Aviation Rulemaking Committee
(ARC) charged with completing a comprehensive review of the
current flight-time and duty-time regulations. Capt. Don
Wykoff (Delta), ALPA executive administrator and chairman of
the ALPA Flight-Time/Duty-Time Committee, co-chaired the
ARC, which also included representatives from the FAA and
industry.
The ARC completed its work today. While this portion of
the effort is complete, the ARC’s recommendations are not
yet public and several important steps remain in the process
to create new flight-time and duty-time regulations. The
first step is for the FAA to draft a regulation from the
recommendations of the ARC, followed by the legal review and
creation of a Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM).
Following the NPRM, stakeholders will be granted an
opportunity to respond to the FAA during a comment period.
During this period, the recommendations of the ARC will
become public. The NPRM is expected to be published by the
end of the year, according to statements made by FAA
Administrator Randy Babbitt.
At this time, ALPA, as well as all the other ARC
participants, is prohibited from commenting publicly about
the ARC. The ARC will submit a report to the FAA
administrator as the next step in the process toward issuing
an NPRM.
ALPA will continue to be fully engaged in the process.
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