Release #11.FDX2
November 21, 2011

FedEx Pilots Join With All ALPA and UPS Pilots Demanding One Level of Safety

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Nearly 2 years ago, on August 10, 2010, the President signed the Airline Safety and Federal Aviation Administration Act of 2010 which required that the Federal Aviation Administration update flight and duty time rules that dated by the 1960’s. The FAA completed its work and eventually, the new rules came before the Office of Management and Budget for review. The Office of Management and Budget is anticipated to release the new flight and duty rules addressing airline pilot fatigue as early as tomorrow. As part of the final review process, strong consideration has been given to a “cargo cut out” which would exempt cargo carriers from compliance with the same Federal Aviation Regulation (FAR) rules as non-cargo carriers.

Congress mandated a science-based rule to apply to all pilots, knowing that fatigue does not discriminate based on the type of operation a pilot is flying. Cargo and passenger airlines operate in the same airspace, fly the same air routes and take off and land at the same airports as passenger airlines. The cargo cut out is simply an economic power play which utterly disregards the safety of the American air transportation system. In the face of this threat to safety, the Air Line Pilots Association Int’l, the ALPA FedEx Master Executive Council and the Independent Pilots Association representing the UPS pilots joined forces late last week. In a letter to President Obama, ALPA President Lee Moak, IPA President Robert Travis and FedEx Master Executive Council Chairman Scott Stratton expressed, “We strongly request that you direct the Office of Management and Budget to require ‘One Level of Safety,’ with respect to fatigue mitigating rules. There is no difference between cargo pilots and pilots who carry passengers. A fatigue-impaired cargo pilot poses the same threats to the general public as a fatigue-impaired passenger pilot.”

Founded in 1931, the Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA) is the largest airline pilot union in the world and represents more than 53,000 pilots at 37 U.S. and Canadian airlines. Visit the ALPA website at www.alpa.org.

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SOURCE: Air Line Pilots Association
CONTACT: FDX ALPA, Courtney Bland, 901-842-2220 or Courtney.bland@alpa.org